It happened a couple of years ago. I was staring at a paragraph replete with strangely spelled words like ‘through’, ‘though’, ‘thought’, ‘enough’, ‘cough’, ‘daughter’, and ‘laughter’ when I decided I had had enough! No longer would I fill my words and sentences with meaningless and confusing letters. I would write words as they sounded, and not by some arbitrary rules passed down to us from 18th century England.

But, as anyone who has tried to spell English phonetically has realized, it is a daunting, and perhaps impossible task. I needed to find a compromise target–someplace I could start my journey towards a more rational language.

The purpose of language, it seems, is to convey information. Written words not only indicate how a word sounds, but often where it came from, and perhaps what root words it uses. For example, we can see that the word ‘psychology’ comes from Greek, since is contains the ‘ps’ combination. Also, we know it is the study of the mind from the roots ‘-ology’ and ‘psyche’.

Some words, and particularly some letter combinations not only fail to provide information about the word, but they can actually convey false information about pronunciation. The letter combination ‘gh’ is full of such false information. For example, I recently came across the word ‘doughty’. How do you pronounce this word? Is it ‘dotty’? Or ‘doffty’? Maybe ‘dowty’? Not only do I not know, there are no clues provided by the spelling of the word. The first time I saw ‘plough’, I had no idea it was ‘plow’.

So in lite of the inefficiencies of ‘gh’, I decided that I would no longer use it in informal writing (I don’t have the guts to omit it in a resume quite yet). But it wasn’t enough just to make the resolution–I had to determine how to do it. I started with some new spellings. First, when the ‘gh’ sound makes an ‘f’ sound, I, in a burst of creativity, decided to use the letter ‘f’. For example, ‘tough’ becomes ‘tuff’, ‘enough’ becomes ‘enuff’ and ‘rough’ becomes ‘ruff’. There are two ‘f’s in order to make the spelling consistent with other similar sounding words like ‘cuff’ and ‘fluff’.

For ‘o’ and ‘u’ sounds, the ‘gh’ is removed. ‘Through’ becomes ‘thru’, and ‘though’ becomes ‘tho’. The word ‘night’ is now spelled ‘nite’. Same for ‘fite’, ‘rite’, ‘lite’ and ‘tonite’.

‘Fought’, ‘caught’, ‘taught’, and ‘thought’ are a little tricky, since the vowel sound is pronounced differently in British and American English. As a Midwesterner, I can spell them ‘fot’, ‘cot’, ‘tot’ and ‘thot’ without changing the pronunciation. Perhaps one day it will evolve to fited, catched, teached and thinked–but one thing at a time.

Fortunately for all of us, the use of these spellings do not require an edict from some authority on language. Unlike many other national languages, English has no such governing body. Instead, usage is decided by the consensus of the people. If enuff people accept something as correct, it becomes correct. There is a long list of propositions for language and spelling reform. I advocate something different. If you don’t like how something is written, write it differently. If enuff people agree with you, it will become correct. If people find your correction cumbersome and unclear, it will be jettisoned to land next to words like ‘doughnut’ and ‘hiccough’.

There are four main advantages to dropping ‘gh’. First, words are shorter, which means less typing, less printing, and less paper. Secondly, words are clearer. If you encounter a word you don’t know, you will have a good idea how to pronounce it. Third, the language will be easier to learn. This benefits children, immigrants, and anyone struggling to learn our language. Fourth, the language will be more logical. Perhaps this is a more aesthetic point, but there is something to be said for brevity and consistency in any system, especially one as ubiquitous as the English language.

On the other hand, maybe there could be some confusion with new words, some of which will look unfamiliar. Could losing ‘gh’ make the language harder to read?

Let’s try an experiment. Here are two sentences, one with the old spelling:

Although the road was rough and unpaved, and the weight of their packs heavy, the doughty men continued to plough their way forward with a thorough commitment to their duty- the duty of comedians to make people laugh.

Now one without ‘gh’:

Altho the road was ruff and unpaved, and the wate of their packs heavy, the dowty men continued to plow their way forward with a thoro commitment to their duty- the duty of comedians to make people laff.

Was the second sentence so strange as to be incomprehensible? Did you wonder what any of the words meant? It seems to me that the second sentence is just as readable, and it is less cumbersome, and shorter.

There are some other arguments for keeping ‘gh’. Some argue that ‘gh’ is the proper spelling, and so we must keep it. Again, since English has no governing council, proper is what people make it. The word ‘impact’ used to be a noun until ten or fifteen years ago people began using it as a verb, and now that usage is common enuff to be considered correct.

Others say that ‘gh’ is traditional, and so we must keep it. Somehow, the idea that pasts habits are automatically rite is one many people still hold, even tho there is no logical reason to do so.

So give it a try. For one week (maybe two if you don’t write that much) try taking ‘gh’ out of your words. You’ll write less, and people will still understand you with no problem. In fact, they may find it easier. This is not an official campaign to declare the end of ‘gh’. If you don’t like it, just stop using it. If you’re not satisfied, you can always gough back to the oughld way of wrighting.