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Questions tagged [letter-names]

For questions about the names of letters in the English language

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Is it correct to pronounce the letter N as "ain" when spelling out words letter by letter?

I live in a non-English-speaking country. A lot of people around me pronounce the letter N as "ain" (/eɪn/ in IPA). I am very confused because in dictionaries the letter N can be only ...
T-Pioneer's user avatar
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the plural of the name of the letter e is ees [duplicate]

According to the wikipedia article of letter e The plural of the name of the letter e is ees (the plural of the letter itself is rendered E's, Es, e's, es). Therefore, is ees then a regular ...
GJC's user avatar
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Does English have written words for each letter in the alphabet? [duplicate]

In Spanish or in Catalan (not sure if also true in other Latin languages) we have a word for each letter in the alphabet. For example, letter "H" is written as "hache", in Spanish or "hac" in Catalan. ...
Claudi's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
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Writing letter name pronunciations in a simple way [duplicate]

Short version, I want to fill in this list of letter names suitable for use in dialog: ?, bee, cee, dee, eee?, eff, gee, aitch, eye, jay, kay, ell, em, en, oh, pee, queue/cue?, arr, ess, tee, you/yew?,...
user3067860's user avatar
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2 answers
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Why is there a word for 'H'? [duplicate]

Why is there a word for the letter H, but not for the other letters? In Lexico–formerly Oxford Dictionaries–for example, H = aitch, as in ‘drop one's aitches’
user351622's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
150 views

Phoneticised alphabet letters [duplicate]

Do all letters of the English alphabet have phoneticised dictionary entries? I'm thinking of the word Vee for the letter V or Zed for the letter Z? For example is there an entry for H? Aitch?
oweydd's user avatar
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2 answers
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How to write letter "K" as a full word correctly? [duplicate]

If I want to write for example "Mr. K". I don't want to use just a single letter. Should I write it like "Mr. Kei", "Mr. Kay" or "Mr. Key"? Update: Let us imagine there was somebody with name Mr. ...
Mr. K's user avatar
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7 votes
3 answers
433 views

How to make a Trump pee correctly

When editing the title to this question here on our sister site ELL: The "p" in Trump my childish inner self was tempted to try and make some sort of scatological pun on the "p" in the question. Now,...
Araucaria - Not here any more.'s user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
2k views

How could "&" have been a letter in the alphabet?

I've been googling and ran across this little blog post. It has a bit of information stating the the & symbol was at one point the 27th letter in the alphabet. For years the & symbol (now ...
Justin808's user avatar
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11 votes
4 answers
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Is there a formal spelling for the English letter names?

The English alphabet has a common pronunciation. For example, the letter b is pronounced like the word bee, the letter c like the word see, and the letter i like the word aye. Is there a formal ...
Adam Matan's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
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Why not pronounce single characters the same way as they are pronounced in words? [duplicate]

We pronounce most of the characters as if they were words and not characters. For example,"C" is pronounced as "See" but when used in a word, we pronounce it as "K". This is the same case with other ...
Registered User's user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
4k views

Where did the names of English letters come from, and why are they all monosyllabic (except for "w")? [duplicate]

I don't know too many languages, but the ones I know have more elaborate names for their letters than the monosyllabicity of names for English letters. (E.g. - I'll pick on Greek here - ay instead of ...
Daniel's user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
2k views

Pronunciation of the letter 'W' [closed]

Why is the letter 'W' pronounced like double-'U' in English and pronounced as double-'V' in French? I've always wondered this. Typographically, the letter 'W' can be written with curvy bottoms (sorry ...
whoabackoff's user avatar
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16 votes
5 answers
48k views

How does one correctly pronounce the letter 'H': "Aych" or "haych"?

What is the correct sound of the letter H when reading the alphabet - is it 'aych' or 'Haych' ?
nicholas ainsworth's user avatar
40 votes
6 answers
4k views

Pronunciation of the English alphabet

Why are there inconsistencies in the pronunciation of the consonants of the alphabet? For example: 'b' is pronounced like 'bee' but 'm' is pronounced as 'em' rather than 'me'. The pronunciation of 'h' ...
dave's user avatar
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