The boss chuckled,
"Good. Now let me hear you spell 'essential.'"
The fair girl hesitated for the fraction of a second.
"There are three ways," she replied. "Which do you prefer?"
And she got the job.
JONES--"'Ow is your 'ealth today, Mr. 'Arrison?"
HARRISON--"My name is not 'Arrison."
JONES--"Well, if a haitch, a hay, two hars, a hi, a hes, a ho and a hen don't spell 'Arrison, then what does it spell?"
A sailor was taken ill with a bad attack of rheumatism while mine-sweeping on a trawler.
The sick man was promptly ordered to hospital, but later on the doctor found out, quite by accident, that he was still on board ship.
Angrily he asked why his order had not been obeyed.
"Well," replied the captain, we tried to send him ashore, but a sergeant of police hailed us and said that on no account was he to be landed or we'd be fined 100, so we just kept him on board."
"But did you not signal to the depot, as I said."
"Yes, we did; but neither me nor the signalman knew how to spell rheumatism, so we called it smallpox."
_O-U-G-H_
_A Fresh Hack at an Old Knot_
I'm taught p-l-o-u-g-h S'all be pronounce "plow."
"Zat's easy w'en you know," I say, "Mon Anglais, I'll get through!"
My teacher say zat in zat case, O-u-g-h is "oo"
And zen I laugh and say to him, "Zees Anglaiz make me cough."
He say "Not coo," but in zat word, O-u-g-h is 'off'
Oh, Sacre bleu! such varied sounds Of words makes me hiccough!
He say "Again mon frien' ees wrong; O-u-g-h is 'up'
In hiccough." Zen I cry, "No more, You make my t'roat feel rough."
"Non, non!" he cry, "you are hot right; O-u-g-h is 'uff.'"
I say, "I try to spik your words, I cannot spik zem though!"
"In time you'll learn, but now you're wrong!
O-u-g-h is 'owe.'"
"I'll try no more, I s'all go mad, I'll drown me in ze lough!"
"But ere you drown yourself," said he, "O-u-g-h is 'ock'."
He taught no more, I held him fast, And killed him wiz a rough.
--_Charles Battell Loomis_.
"Pa, what's phonetic spelling?"
"It's a way of spelling that I often got whipped for when I was your age."
"I say, Hodge, why do you always put 'dictated' on your letters? You don't keep a stenographer."
"No; but to tell the truth, old chap, my spelling's exceedingly rocky."
"And what did my little son learn about this morning?"
"Oh, a mouse. Miss Wilcox told us all about mouses."
"That's the boy! Now, how do you spell 'mouse'?"
It was then that Arthur gave promise of being an artful dodger. He paused meditatively for a moment, then said:
"Father, I guess I was wrong. It wasn't a mouse teacher was telling us about. It was a rat."
What does Ghoughphteightteau spell? Give it up?
Well, "gh" stands for "p" as in "hiccough"; "ough" stands for "o" as in "dough"; "phth" stands for "t" as in "phthisis"; "eigh" stands for "a" as in "neigh"; "tte" stands for "t" as in "gusitte," and "eau" stands for "o" as in "beau." Put them together and you have "P-O-T-A-T-O."
Easy, isn't it?
SPINSTERS
"Helen," said the teacher, "can you tell me what a 'myth' is?" "Yeth, ma'am," lisped Helen; "it ith a woman that hath not got any huthband."
WILLIS--"Going to the party?"
GILLIS--"No. I haven't any lady."