1 post tagged “hard”

Over on the blog for the Double-Tounged Dictionary I ran across a post from a travelling blog discussing the many difficulties of English spelling as it relates to this guy's travels and the military system (of Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, ...). He created a new list to replace the military one (which is used for ease of understanding). The main feature of this list is that it is confusing, vague, and often misleading -- which characterises English orthography.

Read it like, "A is for Are, B is for Beady" for the best effect.

Ripped off:

A) Are
B) Beady
C) Cue
D) Django (helpful only to jazz guitar aficionados).
E) Eye
F) Fiji
G) Gneiss
H) Honorable
I) Ian
J) Jeans
K) Knees
L) Llama (you’d use the authentic Spanish “y” pronunciation, of course)
M) Mnemonic
N) Niece
O) Oedipus
P) Pneumonia
Q) Quay
R) I don’t have a good example of a confusing “R.” Maybe you could roll it, as in “Rrroberrrt Burrrns.”
S) Sea
T) Teepee
U) Urn
V) Apparently a V is always a V, although my dictionary says that Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein, is pronounced “fah-DOOTS.” And any excuse to say “fah-DOOTS” can’t be a bad thing.
W) Why
X) Xerxes
Y) You
Z) Ziti