English is a zany, logic-defying tongue, in which one drives on the parkway and parks on the driveway, plays at a recital and recites at a play. …George Bernard Shaw complained that fish could just as sensibly be spelled ghoti (gh as in tough, o as in women, and ti as in nation) – and that only institutional inertia prevents the adoption of a more rational, spell-it-like-it-sounds system.

Steven Pinker | The Language Instinct