John Walker's Electronic House

The Unphonetic Alphabet

by 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

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