3

Would it be allowed to ask if a word exist which would loosely correspond to an IPA? Would such a question be on-topic, or off-topic?

For example,

Is there a word or combination of words that would be a loose homophone to /ædhɒk/?

Answer would be ad hoc or haddock.

6
  • 1
    Interesting question. I wouldn't say such questions are off-topic in general, but I wouldn't want this site to degenerate into a (yet another) collection of mondegreens, either.
    – RegDwigнt
    Dec 1, 2010 at 12:20
  • 2
    @RegDwight: I've been thinking about it, and maybe it would categorized as "too localized" in most of the case.
    – Eldroß
    Dec 1, 2010 at 12:34
  • 1
    I'm somewhat confused what the purpose of the question is. Why would [hædək] be homophonous in any meaningful way with [ædhɒk]? They don't even loosely rhyme.
    – Kosmonaut
    Dec 8, 2010 at 15:08
  • @Kosmonaut: When I mean loose, I really mean loose, I am not searching identical sounds but more similar. And I have to admit I am mostly thinking in french where haddock is /a.dɔk/ and ad hoc /a.d‿ɔk/. Let's say I was searching some kind of word play, in order to name one of my project, but inbetween I decided against asking the actual question on EL&U.
    – Eldroß
    Dec 8, 2010 at 15:42
  • Off-topic comment, maybe, but how does one insert special characters in Markdown, such as the phonetic symbols I see here?
    – Jimi Oke
    Dec 17, 2010 at 0:49
  • Actually, just found the question that specifically deals with this. I guess there's no "native" way to do it here. Thanks!
    – Jimi Oke
    Dec 17, 2010 at 0:52

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

I don't see how such a question could be considered off-topic. It would be like a single-word-request, except the starting point is a pronunciation instead of a definition.

1
  • Didn't thought about the single-word-request tag. Thanks!
    – Eldroß
    Dec 1, 2010 at 15:26

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .