Thursday 29 May 2008

Mud of some sort or another

Someone mentioned mud, and I immediately sang in my mind “mud, mud, glorious mud” – from ‘Hippopotamus’ by Flanders & Swann.

Mud is something they'd love to find on Mars — see HiRISE images of the Phoenix landing site at www.planetary.org/ blog/ article/ 00001472

Mud also plays a small, but vital role in the film The Ballad of Cable Hogue

And for a picture that evokes quite different emotions, GW Bush officiating at an Air Force Academy graduation ceremony

Thursday 1 May 2008

Some English language alphabets

John Higgins's silent alphabet
A as in BREAD
B as in DEBT
C as in INDICTMENT
D as in HANDKERCHIEF
E as in GIVE
F as in HALFPENNY
G as in GNAW
H as in HOUR
I as in FRIEND
J as in MARIJUANA
K as in KNOW
L as in CALM
M as the first M in MNEMONIC
N as in AUTUMN
O as in PEOPLE
P as in PSALM
Q as in COLQUHOUN (a Scottish surnamepron “Cull-hoon”)
R as in FORECASTLE
S as in ISLAND
T as in CASTLE
U as in GUARD
V as in MILNGAVIE (a Scottish place name pron “Mull-guy” or “Mill-guy”)
W as in WRONG
X as in SIOUX
Y as in PEPYS
Z as in RENDEZVOUS
www.marlodge.supanet.com/ museum/ silent.html

Sites showing the 'spelling-out' alphabets (also called phonetic alphabets, not to be confused with the kind of phonetic alphabets used to show pronounciation)
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whisky, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu
morsecode.scphillips.com/alphabet.html
www.businessballs.com/ phoneticalphabet.htm
Wikipedia: Spelling alphabet
Wikipedia's disambiguation page: Phonetic alphabet