whimzical

One time, during a blood test, the results showed that I was one of them. I was an Elite. I was a President.

Now forced to attend the Presidential Academy of Defense, I am taught by instructors Patton and McArt, as I learn to harness my Presidential Power. Will I be able to survive with.... The Blood of Washington?

THIS IS NOT TRUE.

FOR THOSE UNAWARE OF THIS, UH, “FACT,” THE IDEA IS THAT “GHOTI” COULD BE PRONOUNCED “FISH” IF YOU PRONOUNCE THE GH- AS IN “LAUGH,” THE -O- AS IN “WOMEN,” AND THE “TI” AS IN “AMBITION.”

HOWEVER, THIS FAILS TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THAT THE PRONUNCIATION OF LETTERS IS DEPENDENT ON THEIR POSITION WITHIN THE WORD.

AT THE END OF A WORD OR SYLLABLE, “GH” CAN BE PRONOUNCED LIKE THE LETTER F. THIS IS WHY IT’S PRONOUNCED THAT WAY IN “LAUGH” AND “LAUGHTER” AND “ENOUGH” AND, DEPENDING ON WHO YOU ASK, “VAN GOGH.” AT THE BEGINNING OF A WORD OR SYLLABLE, “GH” IS PRONOUNCED AS AN EXTRA-HARD G-SOUND, AS IN “GHOST” AND “GHOUL” AND “GHASTLY.”

LIKEWISE, “TI” IS NOT PRONOUNCED AS “SH” AT THE END OF A WORD. IN “AMBITION,” IT IS ONLY BECAUSE “TI” IS FOLLOWED BY “O” THAT THERE IS AN “SH” SOUND IN THE WORD AT ALL. THIS IS WHY “RATIO” IS PRONOUNCED WITH AN “SH” SOUND, WHILE “MANTIS” IS PRONOUNCED WITH A “T” SOUND. 

IT’S ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT, IN WORDS LIKE “AMBITION” AND “NATION,” IT’S NOT THAT THE “TI” IS PRONOUNCED LIKE “SH.” “TION” IS A COMPLETE SYLLABLE, PRONOUNCED “SHUN” OR “SHEN.” IF YOU REMOVE ANY OF THE LETTERS, THE PRONUNCIATION WOULD CHANGE.

“ION” DOESN’T HAVE AN SH- SOUND IN IT. “TIN” DOESN’T HAVE AN SH- SOUND IN IT. “TI” DOESN’T HAVE AN SH- SOUND IN IT. “TON” DOESN’T HAVE AN SH- SOUND IN IT. “TIO” ONLY HAS AN SH- SOUND IN IT IF IT’S PRECEDED BY A VOWEL, AS IN “RATIO,” AND EVEN THEN, IT’S PRONOUNCED “SHYO” OR “SHI-O,” DEPENDING ON YOUR ACCENT. 

“O” IS RARELY PRONOUNCED AS IN “WOMEN,” EXCEPT WHEN IT’S IN THE MIDDLE OF A SYLLABLE. 

THAT’S THE THING. “-GH” IS ONLY PRONOUNCED “F” AT THE END OF A SYLLABLE. “O” IS ONLY PRONOUNCED AS IN “WOMEN” IN THE MIDDLE OF A SYLLABLE. “TI-” IS ONLY PRONOUNCED “SH” AT THE BEGINNING OF A CERTAIN SYLLABLES, AND NEVER BY ITSELF.

WHEN ASSEMBLED IN THAT ORDER, NONE OF THOSE PRONUNCIATIONS WOULD APPLY. IF THEY HAD SPELLED IT “GHOTION,” IT WOULD BE PRONOUNCED “GOSHEN.” IF THEY HAD IT “LAUGHOTI,” IT WOULD BE PRONOUNCED “LAFF-OH-TEE.” 

HOWEVER, SPELLED “GHOTI,” THERE’S NO WAY TO PRONOUNCE IT “FISH” UNLESS YOU PRONOUNCE EVERY LETTER INCORRECTLY, IN WHICH CASE YOU’RE NOT PRONOUNCING “GHOTI” AT ALL, YOU’RE PRONOUNCING “FISH.” “GHOTI” IS PRONOUNCED “GOATY.”

NOW, THE ORIGINAL IDEA BEHIND “GHOTI” WAS MAKING FUN OF THE LACK OF RULES GOVERNING ENGLISH SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. THIS IS STUPID AS HELL, BECAUSE THEY HAD TO IGNORE A BUNCH OF THE RULES GOVERNING ENGLISH SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION IN ORDER TO MAKE FUN OF THEIR NON-EXISTENCE.

The Posts are going viral again so sure, I'll dig through my drafts. Two of these were written for the same story. Can you guess which ones?

“Well,” said Alice, “these are a dreadfully strange assortment of objects!”

“They all symbolize different aspects of Our Lord’s martyrdom,” said the Fisher King, casting a line into his teacup.

“Indeed. I am sure everything symbolizes something else, for if everything was only itself I should be very confused. Might I ask what the point of the bleeding lance is?”

Alice regretted asking the question as soon as she had done so, for she saw the pun that would likely be made about the word point. Instead, however, the room erupted in applause and shouts of “The Grail! She has achieved the Grail!”

“Which shall you choose?” asked the guardian. “The underwater bridge or the sword bridge?”

“Both sound dreadful,” said Alice. “I think I’ll just float the cart across.”

The guardian sputtered so hard his helmet broke.

“You cannot ride in a cart to rescue a queen!”

“I don’t see why not,” said Alice, growing cross. “It can’t be worse than abducting a queen.”

“Oh, much worse! For to abduct a Queen is wicked but heard of, while to save he on a cart is virtuous and unheard of.”

“Certainly not!” said Alice.  “For if you can survive such a blow, it would be quite unfair to me, and if you cannot, then I will have killed a man over a silly game!”

“Silly games are the most important thing in the world,” said the Green Knight, “for it is after them that we judge honor.”

“You have nothing to fear,” said the robber knight, “for you are traveling alone. Everyone knows a knight may not attack a maiden alone, but only a maiden traveling with a knightly protector!”

“That can’t possibly be a law,” said Alice. “Camelot is absurd, but not that absurd.”

“It is not a law, but a custom.” The robber knight sounded as if he were lecturing a fool, which Alice felt was very unfair of him. “Customs are far more important than laws, for laws may change, but customs never do.”

Alice didn’t think that was true, but she would not argue the point.

“What about attacking a knight?” she asked. “Can someone attack a lone knight, or only a knight traveling with a maiden?”

“One may attack a knight any time and under any circumstance. That is the meaning of the word ‘knight’- he can be attacked by day or by knight!”

Sometimes, you come home for an extended Christmas vacation—thank god for two vacation days a month—and your father has turned a bunch of the local community college girls into swans. That’s just how life is. You try to be understanding, really; it’s not like you don’t have a couple shitty dates tucked away in your back garden. (They make an unholy noise whenever the wind is high, but they also eat the spider mites, so.)

During the day, you feed the swans-who-are-technically-girls whole wheat bread, because that’s what the internet told you was best for swans. (Cultivated grains, right?) At night, you lend them your high school sweatshirts and old pajama pants, and blow up every air mattress you can beg or borrow from friends. Your father glares at them whenever they try to sit on the sofa, snarling to be quiet during Late Night. One of them, the slender brunette, cries silently.

Afterwards, the girls whisper to one another, and your father retreats to the back patio to smoke a cigar. After the first night—after Odette, who goes by Etta, clutches your sleeve and whispers, can you get us out of here?—you go out to join him.

“What exactly was your plan here, dad?” you ask, and Rothbart, the poster child for single-father assholery, grunts and goes on smoking.

You get up at four the next morning, in order to make the swans a human breakfast while they’ll still appreciate it. “Thank you,” Etta says when you hand her a plate of runny eggs, almost-burnt toast. She’s pretty, in a small-town coed sort of way. In the hazy, artificial light of the kitchen, her eyelashes are fine and pale against her cheeks, and it makes you think of something grown in the dark, a flower that will never bloom.

“Yeah, well,” you say, giving Etta an extra slice of bacon. “Merry Christmas.”

.

You call your boss the twenty-sixth, and tell him that your father’s had some health issues, you’re going to need FMLA. He tells you not to worry about it, just make sure to let HR know.

Outside the window, the swans are huddled together on the half-frozen pond in your backyard, their heads bent together like lovers. You can’t help admiring the elegant curve of those long, white necks, how lovely they are, set against the grey slate of the sky and the shadows of the skeletal trees. They’re trembling—you didn’t even know swans could get cold.

You tell your boss you’ll keep him updated.

.

The missing posters are all over town, once you know to look. Pretty, white—Rothbart’s gotten stupid and started breaking his own rules—Midwestern girls. Cornsilk hair, braces-trained smiles. Some of their photographs show them in cheerleader outfits, band uniforms. Another stupid, sloppy detail.

“Isn’t it sad?” Mary Anne, who was your friend and hated you in the same breath, simpers. “All those girls, just up and vanished.”

“Sad,” you echo. “Do the police have any leads?”

They don’t, you know. No one has leads on girls that turn into swans, any more than they have leads on men who turn into toads, or wolves, or birds, or frogs, or ravens. It’s the only reason your family has lasted as long as it has—being careful, always careful, and making sure that when a curse stuck, it stuck. Every morning since you came home, you’ve found Kelly Loshanko standing in your front yard, her nostrils flaring; she’s starting to show her age, and you’re still surprised she’s managed to last this many deer hunting seasons. You’ve heard rumors there are still families in Grand Rapids suffering from the curse your great-grandmother laid down on their bloodline, because they offended her. Or because she wanted to, or simply because she could—your great-grandmother was never one for explaining herself.

(You sometimes think about having that much power, all the things you could use it for. It would be a new world.)

Mary Anne is talking about her husband, who’s been spending “too much time on the internet.” You make sympathetic noises, and think about how unlikely it is that Etta ever finds a man to love her who has never loved before.