Monday, February 16, 2009

Words and Phrases from Names of Letters and Numbers

Here are some words and phrases formed by speaking the names of letters and numbers. Professor Don Colton calls these DVS words or grammagrams. He gives some brief 'rules' as to what is and is not a DVS word, which I have tried to follow here. Words followed by an asterisk (*) are near-misses -- at least for US West-Coast English speakers.

Update: I'm no longer updating this blog page. When I find new DVS words or phrases, I add them to this Google Doc.

DVS words are a class of homonyms - words that sound the same.

Words and Phrases:
1 – one, won, wan
2 – two, too, to
4 – four, for, fore
6 – six, sex,
8 – eight, ate
A – a, hey, eh
B – be, bee
C – see, sea
D – the*
F – if
G – gee
H – edge*, age*
I – I, eye, aye
K – okay
L – hell, will*, well*
M – am, them*, him*, ham*
N – an, in, and*
O – oh, owe
P – pea, pee
Q – cue, queue
R – are, or, our
S – is
T – tea, tee
U – ewe, you, hew*
X – eggs*
Y – why
2A – two-way
2L – tool
2N – tune*
2R – tour*
4A – foray
4C – foresee
4D – forty
4M – forum
4N – foreign
4T – forty
6D – sixty
6E - sexy
6S – success
6T – sixty
7D – seventy
7T – seventy
8D – eighty
8T – eighty
9D – ninety
9T – ninety
AD – eighty
AL – ale, ail
AR – air
AT – eighty
B4 – before
B9 – benign
BD – beady
BG – busy
BH – bitch*
BN – bean, being*
BZ – busy
CD – seedy
CL – seal, ceil
CN – seeing*
CQ – seek you
CR – seer
CT – city
D5 – defy
D9 – denying*
DK – decay
DL – deal
DR – dear, deer
DZ – dizzy
EA – yea!, yay
EL – eel, yell
ER – ear*, your*
ES – yes
EZ – easy
FR – ever
FX – effects
GR – jeer*
IC – icy
II – Aye-aye
IL – aisle, isle
IV – ivy
JL – jail
K9 – canine
KG – cagey
KL – kale
KR – care
L8 – elate
LO – hello
ME – Emmy
MT – empty
N2 – into
N8 – innate
NE – any
NR – inner
NS – anise*, anus*
NT – auntie*
NV – envy
NX – annex
OK – okay
OL – oil, oh well
PL – peel, peal
PR – peer*, pier*
PP – pee pee
QP – Kewpie
QT – cutie
R8 – orate*, rate*, aerate*
RG – orgy*
RT – arty
S6 – Essex
SA – essay
SX – Essex
TL – teal
TP – teepee
U8 – you wait
UA – you weigh
UH – you wage*
UL – you will, you well, yule
UR – your*, you're*
VL – veal
VU – view
XL – excel
XM – exam
XS – excess
YL – while
ZL – zeal
2BS – dubious
4CR – foreseer
4FR – forever
4N6 – forensics
4NR – foreigner
6SR – successor
6UL – sexual*
8ND – attendee
10S – Tennis
AGN – Agean
AV8 – aviate
BUT – beauty
DV8 – deviate
DVS – devious
JMN - jammin'*
KRN – caring
LMO – Alamo
LOG – elegy
MN8 – emanate
MR8 – emirate
N4S – enforce*
NDN – Indian
NE1 – anyone
NME – enemy
NRG – engery
NTT – entity
NVS – envious
ODS – odious
OP8 – opiate
OPM – opium
PNO – piano
R8R – orator
SKP – escapee
SN9 – asinine
TDS – tedious
VDO – video
XLN – excellent*
XMN – examine
XP8 – expiate
XTC – ecstasy
2M8O – tomato*
10SE – Tennesse
AV8R – aviator
DV8R – deviator
DVNC – deviancy
EDBD – itty-bitty
U4EA – euphoria*
LMN8 – eliminate
MSRE – emissary
N4SR – enforcer*
NMNE – anemone
NVDS – invidious
QS10 – question*
RKDN – Arcadian
XLNC – Excellency
XLR8 – accelerate, exhilarate
XMNR – examiner
XP8R – expiator
YLU8 – while-you-wait
CNMNE – sea anemone
LMN8R – eliminator
NSTZA – anesthesia
OBDNC – obediency*
SNTLE – essentially
XFSEO – ex officio
XLR8R – accelerator
XPDNC – expediency


Names:
B – Bea
D – Dee
J – Jay
K – Kay, Kaye
Z – Zee
BL – Beale, Bill
EN – Ian
EV – Evie
GG – Gigi
IV – Ivy
JC – JaiCi
JN – Jane
KC – Casey
KN – Cain
KT – Katie
LC – Elsie
LE – Ellie
LS – Alice, Ellis
LX – Alex
ME – Emmy
MN – Ammon
NE – Annie
NS – Innes
OB – Obi
OP – Opie
PT – Petey
RT – Artie
UG – Yugi
KRN – Karen
LSN – Allison, Ellison
MLE – Emily
MNM – Eminem
OB1 – Obi-Wan
UGO – Yu-Gi-Oh
XAVR – Xavier


Some longer phrases:
I12BA6S – I want to be a success.
4FRNFR – Forever and ever.
I1NME – I won an Emmy.
OICURMT - Oh I see you are empty
OICUR2MT4T – Oh I see you are too empty for tea.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

A Day Wasted

The following diary entries were made on the same day by Charles Francis Adams, an ambassador to Great Britain, and his son, Brooks Adams:

Charles Francis Adams: "Went fishing with my son. A day wasted."
Brooks Adams: "Went fishing with my father - the most glorious day of my life."

This reminded me to waste some time with my kids today.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Incorrect owner flags for directoy hard link (id=xxxxxxxx)

While running Apple Disk Utility repair on my external USB drive (which I use primarily for Backup), I started getting hundreds and hundreds of warnings:

Incorrect owner flags for directoy hard link (id=xxxxxxxx)
(it should be 0x2 instead of 0x0)

where the id was a 8 digit number, like 19831030, that increased with each message. After running all night, it repair didn't seem any closer to finishing. So, I killed Disk Utility. I set the USB Drive as my startup drive (fortunately, it has OS X on it), and rebooted into safe mode (Cmd-S).

Then, I entered:
fsck_hfs -yprdf /dev/rdisk1s2

Fsck_hfs gave me similar messages, but seemed to be running faster. Indeed, it finished in about 47 minutes, with errors repaired. I ran it again, this time with no errors reported.

To finish and reboot, I entered:
shutdown -r now

After reboot, I switched the startup disk back to my built-in hard drive, and restarted. Once restarted, I ran Apple Disk Utility on the USB drive again. It found a minor error, and repaired it. Since then, it has been repairing fine.

I still have no idea why the USB drive started misbehaving. My guess is that one of the kids interrupted a backup by non-gracefully powering down the machine. Anyway, I hope this trick helps others.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Children: Agents of Chaos

I love kids. Especially toddlers. They are unpredictable and sometimes unstoppable. They haven't learned what things should and should not be pushed, thrown, leaned against, poured, stepped upon, eaten, flushed down the toilet, or inserted into the CD slot.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Unfashionable

This paraphrased quote from Randy Pausch's book, "The Last Lecture", caught my fancy:

"Fashion is commerce masquerading as hip"

My wife tells me that only a person lacking fashion sense would find this amusing.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

A High Quality Knol

This week I published my first article on Google's new Knol service (http://knol.google.com/k/knol#). It was pretty easy. The topic is something near and dear to my heart (and my career) -- Bugs. More specifically, software defects. You can check out the article by clicking, "Setting Bug Severity and Priority". Let me know what you think.

Update: Moved article to Google Docs after Knol shut down: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12wzwGnKE0GG4ehEC0d2MYT8WrcTsX9AGe1ERRC11AIA/edit?pli=1#heading=h.vq50zqp6utsv.