ghoti is what you write down to confuse someone. Pronounced 'fish', it utilises the 'gh' from 'cough', the 'o' from 'women' and the 'ti' from 'action' to become a confusing little bugger. If you are writing to a posh person, be sure to start a conversation about fish, and say 'ghoti' several times. It means fish, too.

A polite term for shoving a lubricated probe into the Earth's hole to release gas.

This word is pronounced 'fish' through manipulation of atypical linguistic rules.
It uses the gh from laugh, the o from women and the ti from nation.

The correct spelling of the word 'fish'

You take the 'gh' in trough

the 'o' in women

and the 'ti' in action

ghoti=fish

An excellent DJ of certain shoutcast stations

a word used to make fun of english spelling.

"gh" sometimes makes a /f/ sound as in tough
"o" sometimes makes a /ɪ/ sound as in women
"ti" sometimes make a /ʃ/ sound as in nation

put it all together and ghoti is pronounced /fɪʃ/.

what people don't realize is that this doesn't even make sense with english's normal phonotactic rules. "gh" is never /f/ word-initially and "ti" is never /ʃ/ without a vowel after it. so this doesn't work.