The Unphonetic Alphabet
by John Walker on Jul.02, 2010, under The Rest
During a recent afternoon trip to the 1970s world of Chew Magna Lake, my friends and I found ourselves attempting to create the Unphonetic Alphabet. The motivation being, a complete set of 26 words to use to bemuse people on the phone who ask for spelling. “No, that’s John. J for jalapeño.”
It’s ten short, which is where you come in. Can we complete this?
I’m sure many have done it before. There’s probably a website devoted to the subject, and someone else writing slash fiction about the letters involved. But rather than search for that and crib, it’s more fun to do it ourselves. So any suggestions for the missing letters are gratefully received. As are suggestions for better words. L and Y are particularly unsatisfying at the moment. Non-English words are perfectly good, so long as they’re in common English usage.
I’ll edit this post as suggestions come in. When it’s finished, we’ll all win a magic prize.
A: aether
B: bee / bdellium
C: ctenophore
D: djembe
E: eye
F:
G: gnat
H: honour
I:
J: jalapeño
K: knee
L: Llanelli
M: mnemonic
N: Nguyen
O: oestrogen
P: pneumatic
Q: qi
R: Rzeznik
S: sgraffitto
T: tsunami
U: Uighur
V:
W: write
X: xylophone
Y: Yreka
Z: Zaragoza
July 2nd, 2010 on 00:15
B: Bjork?
E: Eurythmics
F: Fjord
July 2nd, 2010 on 00:26
E for Eisenhower?
July 2nd, 2010 on 00:37
Maybe this is just my lack of linguistic expertise showing, but how do you decide which sound is the default phonetic pronunciation? e.g. Why is ceiling less phonetic than Charlie? Is it the primary school letter sounds (e.g. C for cat) that you’re trying to get away from? If so, S should be fairly easy: anything starting “st” or “sh” would be distinct from S for sea.
July 2nd, 2010 on 01:06
Phill – Bjork and Fjord both start with a heavy B and F sound, so don’t work. Eurythmics is good though.
B – I like that. I wonder if there’s a regular noun that’s similarly i-sounding though.
July 2nd, 2010 on 01:11
This doesn’t get us anywhere but Djibouti is fun to say.
July 2nd, 2010 on 01:14
Eiderdown would work for E.
July 2nd, 2010 on 01:27
James: Though “S as in sea” is itself entertainingly unhelpful, if not unphonetic.
July 2nd, 2010 on 05:13
I’d go with E as in Europe, or Euthanasia. People don’t purely associate them with the band then…
July 2nd, 2010 on 05:53
Coincidentally, I had a go at this myself a while back:
http://trioptimum.co.uk/archives/2004/09/the-international-confusing-ph.html
Mnemonic’s the only point of overlap with your list, though most are along the same lines. I did have to cop out with several, though, by doing ‘X as in’ instead of ‘X for’. Yours is going to end up purer.
I quite like ‘R for righting’ and the completely unhelpful ‘B for bee’ so I nominate these for inclusion here.
July 2nd, 2010 on 07:19
I nominate “Uigur” for U.
July 2nd, 2010 on 07:31
Also possibly “verboten” for V.
July 2nd, 2010 on 07:48
You might prefer “Tsunami” for T (if you’re trying to avoid proper nouns)
July 2nd, 2010 on 08:00
Eisteddfod or eyrie
For s, the only thing I can think of is something like Schumacher – there’s probably a better word with the same beginning.
Zsa Zsa Gabor
July 2nd, 2010 on 09:13
S is a terror, the two best candidates I have is “syrt” because it is a homonym of the more common “cert”, and “sgraffitto” which has an almost silent s, and even then it’s pronounced more like a z.
July 2nd, 2010 on 10:36
U for ‘uakari’ (pronounced ‘wakari’), a short-tailed species of monkey.
July 2nd, 2010 on 12:13
V – Volkswagen could work if you pronounce it with /f/ like they do in German.
Also, I don’t see how ceiling works, /si:/ for /si:lɪŋ/ is good.
July 2nd, 2010 on 12:38
Utrecht for U?
Possibly, when it gets pronounced more like “oo” than “u”
July 2nd, 2010 on 13:22
Not for cribbing purposes, as they’re not all unphonetic, but Absolutely had a splendid sketch with Calum Gilhooley booking a flight; about 3m10s in to: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/absolutely/4od#2922607
July 2nd, 2010 on 13:49
yttrium.
July 2nd, 2010 on 15:10
E for Eyjafjallajökull?
(Pronunciation: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull-bjarmason.ogg)
July 2nd, 2010 on 17:02
This is clearly not an American friendly unphonetic list. Aether I am at least familiar with as a spelling. If someone told me O as in estrogen, I wouldn’t even get the joke. O as in ouija board?
July 2nd, 2010 on 17:26
I: Iwan or Igor?
July 2nd, 2010 on 17:32
F for Phlegm!
*hack, cough*
Yay, I contributed!
July 3rd, 2010 on 00:35
@George – brilliant! I wish I’d thought of that. Seems so obvious now. :|
July 3rd, 2010 on 10:56
I for Iacopo?
It’s a name though, so perhaps not ideal.
July 7th, 2010 on 22:02
There is a barenaked ladies song off their snack time album, Crazy ABC’s, thats all about alternative alphabets.
July 12th, 2010 on 11:56
This game is so exciting, I have passed it on to everyone I talked to in the last 2 weeks.
*possibly* better…
E for ‘ex’
G for ‘gaol’
I for ‘ifor’ (the repetition we liked…)
S for ‘see’
July 13th, 2010 on 14:16
Yggdrasil!