SHEILA KING spoke of Fonix to DAN TRIPLETT on 10-26-96
SK>One of the things I always remember so well from my linguistics
SK>courses is the ever-popular "phonetic" spelling of the word "fish"
SK>as: ghoti
SK> 
SK>where "gh" represents the "f" sound at the end of the word cough.
SK>"o" represent the short "i" sound as in the word "women"
SK>"ti" represents the "sh" sound as in the word "motion"
SK> 
SK>I've trotted that example out in my math classes a few times when we
SK>somehow get off-topic. The students apparently really like that one.
SK>I had a kid who mentioned it to me one time in the hallway a couple
SK>of years AFTER he'd been in my class. He still remembered it.
I like this example as well.  Having a bit of a linguistics background, 
perhaps you can shed some light on why some of the words we spell break 
the "phonetic" rules.  Why didn't we simply spell cough as couf or cof?  
Why not wimen?  Why not moshun?  
Isn't y a vowel sometimes and even w in at leas one case acts as a 
vowel.  
Dan
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