Playwright George Bernard Shaw was fond of pointing out that the word "ghoti" could just as well be pronounced "fish" if you followed common pronunciation: 'gh' as in "tough," 'o' as in "women" and 'ti' as in "nation.*I read this and thought of all the difficulties I have with the French language. Then I came up with the following rules to follow:
- If in doubt, don't pronounce any letters
- If I don't know a word in French, just say the English word in a French accent (it's surprising how often this works)
- When using one of the infinitesimal homonyms, invoke the art of mime to encourage a general feeling of apparent effort if not comprehension
- When trying to pronounce the rrrridiculous French 'r' put my tongue behind my bottom teeth and fein severe vomiting
- Look deliberately into the middle distance, and in whatever tense I can muster, with the self-assured, empassioned delivery of Descartes, say...anything, preferably followed by a victorious stubbing out of a cigarette
- "There's no such thing as people not making sense, just people who don't understand."**
**me.
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