The inconsistencies in English pronunciation are often illustrated by the assertion that the word fish can be pronounced as GHOTI. This has been attributed to Bernard Shaw but it may have derived from one of Shaw's fellow-enthusiasts for spelling reform. In his biography Bernard Shaw (1991), Michael Holroyd says: 'When an enthusiastic convert suggested that "ghoti" would be a reasonable way to spell "fish" under the old system (gh as in "tough", o as in "women", and ti as in "nation"), the subject seemed about to be engulfed in the ridicule from which Shaw was determined to save it.' The GHOTI story is so well-known that James Joyce referred to it in Finnegans Wake (1939): "Gee each owe tea eye smells fish."
From http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/wordfrom/writtentomahto/