Making the f sound with ph is quite another matter. Almost all of the sixty or more commonly used
words, from photo and phone to phobia and graph, plus countless scientific terms, are of Greek origin
and are now deeply imbedded in our language.
(^) We must wonder why the ancient translators chose to use ph when the Greeks used a single letter phi
(Φ) or why they did not simply use the f. Many languages, most notably Spanish, logically use the f:
(^) Perhaps the change is already happening. Today, the name Stephen is more commonly spelled Steven,
and we also have the unaccepted but very popular foto for photograph.