The great English dramatist, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), was also interested in language, in its oral and written form.

One of Shaw's most popular plays, Pymgmalion, describes a language-teacher who trains a cockney flower seller to speak English well enough to be presented to royalty. This play became a film in 1938, starring Wendy Hiller (as flower seller) and Leslie Howard (as teacher). And, set to music by Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Lowe, as My Fair Lady, it became a 1964 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in the respective roles.

Shaw spent years in an attempt to reform the phonetics of the alphabet. Part of his will assigned money to a foundation to be set up for this purpose.

To deride the standard phonetics, Shaw proposed an alternative spelling for "fish", namely, "ghoti":

• the "f" sound was replaced by "gh" as in "laugh";
• the short "i" sound was replaced by "o" as in "women";