Look at him there. Look at his face. Look at how happy he is to have his big, important letter. The North Koreans really understand him perfectly: give him a really big letter, in a really big envelope, flatter him, make him feel important.
It’s both – that’s the boring but correct answer. It depends on the context, of course.
Carrying on from yesterday’s look at the NATO phonetic alphabet, I thought today I’d spend a little time thinking about the regular English alphabet in general. It’s something we take for granted, but there are plenty of interesting things about it. Continue reading
How do you pronounce the letter Z?
Chances are that if you’re American, or learnt American English, you pronounce it as zee. For the rest of us, it’s zed. Why the difference? Continue reading
—So that’s N… I… A…
—N!?
—No, N.
—M, ok.
—No, N.
—Yeah, that’s what I said, M.
—It’s N, n for nuisance.
English-Language Thoughts 