4 ms·
Taking the mystery of OK one step further: Spelling out single letters phonetically is fairly common (tee fitting, wye adaptor, em dash, queue/cue, and the ent
by hunter2_ 2y ago
Taking the mystery of OK one step further:
Spelling out single letters phonetically is fairly common (tee fitting, wye adaptor, em dash, queue/cue, and the entire Greek alphabet) but it's very rare for multi-letter initialisms. The only others I can think of are deejay (disk jockey) and emcee (master of ceremonies). But okay, defying all odds as usual, got there!
- Kye 2y agocee bee ay tea em eye pea zee (or zed) pea em if you're into Stargate
- hunter2_ 2y agoThe words (space-delimited) that you cited are each representing single letters, which I mentioned are popular. It's the compound words (deejay, emcee, okay) representing multiple letters that are rare.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- FiatLuxDave 2y agoAnother example, going back to WWII, is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabee