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Kickass Bongs #3: Batman was Bengali

or spent a lot of time in Calcutta; how else would he know about the relationship between a ghoti and his fish?

From the Batman TV Episode An Egg Grows in Gotham [2.13]
Robin: “Ghoti” is “fish”?
Batman: See here. English phonetics. GH becomes F, as in “tough” or “laugh”. O becomes I as in “women”. TI becomes SH as in “ration” or the word “nation”.
Robin: Holy semantics, Batman. You never cease to amaze me!
Batman: No time for compliments, Robin. We must thwart some criminals. To the Batmobile!

I knew it all along. Must go watch another Bong superhero, the bnoti-fingered Ulbharin from Uluberia, sometime soon at a movie theatre near me.

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About Samit Basu

Novelist. Best known for fantasy and science fiction work. Most recently, The City Inside (Tordotcom)/Chosen Spirits (Simon and Schuster)

Discussion

5 thoughts on “Kickass Bongs #3: Batman was Bengali

  1. I have read this attributed to Bernard Shaw. Wait! That means Shaw was a Bong? Ah, the penny drops!

    Posted by Karun | June 9, 2009, 10:20 pm
  2. obviously. GB=jibi=short for buddhijibi=intellectual. Shaw= Shaw Wallace, also from Calcutta. in the indian blogosphere, GB also stands for GreatBong. there you go.

    Posted by samit | June 9, 2009, 10:28 pm
  3. I remember reading about ‘photi’ – at that time, ‘ghoti’ never occurred to me. Well that’s another addition to the ever-growing list, whose most famous members are Adidas (Adinath Das) and Monginis (Mon Ginish).

    Posted by Kaushik Chatterji | June 9, 2009, 10:58 pm
  4. also neruda, derrida etc., who are right up there with pheluda, tenida and ghonada (and the local versions thereof in every goli everywhere).

    Posted by Monidipa | June 14, 2009, 3:57 am
  5. I’m glad I stumbled in here šŸ™‚

    Posted by mikimbizii | June 22, 2009, 3:39 pm

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