why is the word phonetic not spelt with an F? eh?

Answer 1

Because it's not spelt phonetically!
Why is "Dyslexia" so hard to spell?
Why is the word "Abbreviation" so long?

Answer 2

As some have noted, the explanation is related to the Greek origin of this word

"ph" is a long-recognized representation of the f-sound. Specifically, it is a "digraph" -- or set of two letters used to represent one sound. Other standard digraphs in English are "ch", "sh" and "th".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digraph_(orthography)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H#Value

Of course, in all those cases, the alphabet lacks a consonant to represent the sound (esp. since the loss of the letters called "thorn" and "eth"-- used for the "th" sounds [with the voice -"the"; without the voice "math"]). So why "ph" when we already have "f"?

This happened because the Greek words we spell with "ph" were borrowed THROUGH Latin. It was in Latin that certain conventions for representing the Greek sounds was developed. One of these was "ph" for the Greek letter "phi". (Originally, in the Latin borrowing the sound of "ph" was different from Latin "f", which explains why this new convention developed.) By keeping the "historical orthography [=spelling]" in these cases it is still possible to recognize words of Greek origin, and sometimes to tell something more about how the word is pronounced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_words_of_Greek_origin#The_written_form_of_Greek_words_in_English

Answer 3

Because the English language is not phonetic.

Answer 4

Maybe because it's based on a Greek word, and Greek does not have the letter "F." Similar to the word telephone. Or Phonograph.

Answer 5

because the meaning of a word is often divorced from its construction. This word is based on the word "phoneme" from the Greek, and that's how it translated.

Answer 6

why is the word phone not spelt with an F? lol

Answer 7

because the English language is illogical

Answer 8

because the people who make up words can't spell.