Date: 2008-05-08 19:54:00
antiphonetic alphabet

The Antiphonetic Alphabet is sort of like the Phonetic Alphabet, only more confusing. Perhaps this should be called anacrophonic (see Acrophony).

AAegis
BBane
CCzar
DDjibouti
EEunuch
FFeign
GGnome
HHour
IIo
JJuan
KKnife
LLane
MMnemonic
NNguyen
OOedipus
PPneumonia
QQatar
RRwanda
SSixths
TTchaikovsky
UUrn
VVein
WWhy
XXylophone
YYttrium
ZZero
[info]mduell
2008-05-08T15:40:13Z
*posted in the FlightAware office*
[info]sonjaaa
2008-05-08T17:19:22Z
Gnome and Djibouti and Knife work awesomely!

Stuff like Lane and Vein needs to be changed to something more acrophonic...?
[info]ghewgill
2008-05-08T19:40:30Z
I chose bane, feign, lane, and vein because they all sound the same. I couldn't find any words where the sound of the first letter was suitably disguised. Ideas welcome! :)
[info]sonjaaa
2008-05-08T19:55:10Z
Ohhh right. So it defeats the purpose of having a longer word!
[info]nugget
2008-05-08T22:33:20Z
I'm glad you took up this task and finally finished the alphabet. There are a few places where yours differs from the incomplete one that I started a few years ago:

B as in Bdellium
C as in Cay (I like Czar better, though, I think)
E as in Eidetic (this is a wash)
I as in Ivo (la la la)
H as in Homage (I sort of prefer this with the long o sound instead of the short o)

[info]ghewgill
2008-05-09T08:17:47Z
Ooh, I like bdellium. That's what I get for using the /usr/share/dict/words file from linux, it only has boring words. :)
[info]banana
2008-05-10T18:57:07Z
How about "Llangollen"?

Here's a nice explanation of how to pronounce a double L in Welsh:
No English equivalent. Made by putting tip of tongue on roof of mouth and blowing.
(source)
[info]ghewgill
2008-05-10T23:07:53Z
I have a slightly updated version that has Bdellium, Llama (pronounced "yama", of course), and Vrbaite. While the Welsh ll is tempting, there are probably more people worldwide that are familiar with the Spanish ll!
Greg Hewgill <greg@hewgill.com>