What better way to welcome a new member to the team, than to immerse them full force into the head swimming world of phonetics? Luckily Amie Knights, our bright young talent has taken it all in her stride. Here’s her account of her dazing dabble with pronunciation…
‘Phonemania
1. (n) /fɒn.əʊ.meɪ.nɪ.ə/ The result of learning phonetics. When phonetics fill one’s mind.’
I can’t say I expected to be spending my morning delving into the depths of phonetic gobbledygook, but here I am elbows deep in back-to-front ‘a’s and upside down ‘e’s. Thankfully, after a few hours spent rewiring my brain, I’m feeling somewhat combobulated- that’s right, we’re word hacking again! You know, bringing two words together to make a completely new one. And now we’ve taken the opportunity to add another notch to our proverbial bedpost on the skills front; phonetics.
Looking at a list of phonetic words I stared, dumbstruck, as the pesky signs and symbols flew about the screen, clearly mocking my inability to capture them. After a while I was feeling thoroughly flustrated and then, bit by bit, it all began to make a smidgen of sense. It’s like doing algebra at school; one moment you’re lost in mathematical limbo, the next you drop back to earth and find yourself completing sheet after sheet of seemingly improbably equations. #crackedit.
And so the hacking continues, phonetics and all. Stay posted for the full Word Hacking feature in our forthcoming Feed publication.