SCISSORS

From THE WISE GEEK


Based on the way it's pronounced, the word "scissors" could theoretically be spelled 80 million different ways.

The English language doesn't use phonetic spelling, at least partially because there would be so many different possible ways to spell words that it would make it hard for people to understand each other. There are so many different possible ways to spell English words largely because English uses a lot of words from very different sources; from Germanic to Latin to Greek.

For instance, based purely on the way it sounds, the word "scissors" could theoretically be spelled about 80 million different ways, including "sizerz" "schiesourrhce" and "cisers." This is only theoretical though, because to reach all 80 million possibilities a person would have to use letters in incorrect ways, like using the "z" at the end of a word to make an "s" sound.