P for Phonetic

15 Comments

Topics: Daily Life, Language    

The English alphabet

As a pathological mumbler and someone with an uncommon name, I’m no stranger to the phonetic alphabet (“Yes, that’s M for Mary, A for apple, …”)

However, I am not military trained and the official word-letter pairings are not second nature to me. Moreover, as a writer for chickenmonkeydog, I am duty-bound to try out different words (e.g., “Yes, that’s S for soliloquy.”)

So here’s the exercise for today. If we were to build the world’s most confusing phonetic alphabet, what might be some entries you’d like to see?

Also, does anyone else feel that we need a similar system for numbers? It’s amazing how many times people have trouble differentiating the numbers 2 and 3 over the phone.

Posted 4 Jul 2012

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15 Responses to “P for Phonetic”

  1. Liam on July 5th, 2012 6:05 am

    I love S for soliloquy. I’ve always wanted to try something like P for psychology.

  2. Conall on July 5th, 2012 8:44 am

    L for lugubrious

    N for nevertheless

  3. K on July 5th, 2012 12:05 pm

    Z for zizzer zazzer zuzz (yes, I stole it from the great Theodore Geisel.)

  4. Conall on July 6th, 2012 7:14 am

    What about..

    B as in Bee

    Q as in Queue

  5. Liam on July 7th, 2012 10:43 am

    When will we start to hear phonetics like “L as in LOL”?

  6. Divya on July 9th, 2012 7:42 am

    K as in Knight
    W as in Right
    H as in Herb..

  7. Divya on July 9th, 2012 7:44 am

    Oops! W as in write! Looks like I was focusing on confusion!

  8. Divya on July 9th, 2012 8:42 am

    P as in Pterodactyl
    M as in Mnemonic
    A as in Aisle
    This is so much fun!
    Could you just edit my previous comment to W as in wright/write? Sorry about that! Thanks!

  9. Jim on July 9th, 2012 9:24 am

    X is for xylophone.

  10. Jim on July 9th, 2012 9:24 am

    K is for Knight

  11. Sumanth on July 9th, 2012 10:07 pm

    Love the comments so far. Here are some more that I thought of:

    Y for Yukon (even better if it’s followed or preceded by U for Ukelele)

    F for floccinaucinihilipilification

    J for Juan

  12. daine on July 13th, 2012 8:04 am

    I like to confuse things more in these cases by using words that could start with any letter, and then purposely saying the wrong one:

    Yes, that’s B as in Dog.

    M as in Nap

  13. Helen on July 16th, 2012 10:35 am

    Love the suggestions! Whenever I need to tap into phonetic alphabet brain all I can think of are rude words? One rainy afternoon (add friends and wine) we created the inappropriate and totally unpublishable nouveau phonetic alphabet… On this polite blog my contribution is ‘A as in antidisestablishmentarianism’ as in the longest word I know.

  14. Jordan on July 19th, 2012 12:48 pm

    A is for eh
    I is for aye
    U is for you
    Y is for why

  15. Liam on July 20th, 2012 12:25 pm

    Loving the phonetics. Hilarious!

    Let’s talk about the last point in the post: numbers. I’d love to say something like “27 … as in one score and half a fortnight.”

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