Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'

h a l f b a k e r y
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aoln
phonetic symbol required to translate AOL-speak
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Hi guys, I don't usually do "change the alphabet" ideas, but have you ever noticed that in the America Online commercials, the slogan "Want a better Internet?" is pronounced so nasally that all the letters practically sound the same?

First off, all the interior consonants sound alike, so it's more like "wanna benner innernet?". Second, even the vowels are pronounced almost alike, it's the same, non-English, almost francophone nasal vowel, used in place of all the schwa's, short a's, and short e's.

As there's no proper way to represent this sound, I propose a new symbol, "aoln", which is shaped like an AOL logo: a triangle with a circle in the middle of it.

The aoln can be voiced or unvoiced; when voiced, it represents indistinct consonants such as the "n" and "t" in the above phrase. When unvoiced, it gives a nasal tone to a short, schwalike vowel.

In phonetics, I recommend the symbols /_\ and /o\ be used to represent the unvoiced and voiced sounds, respectively.

Hence "Wanna better Internet" could be transcribed as

W/_\/o\/_\ b/_\/o\/_\ i/o\/_\rn/_\


phundug, Oct 17 2005



Annotation:







       I rather imagine that there are well-defined alphabets of symbols to describe regional and slang pronunciation. Have you checked those out for the sounds you describe?

DrCurry, Oct 17 2005
  


 
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