Accents - Part 4

Ok, so this is not technically an accent observation, but it is part of the speaking patterns. When giving a phone number or spelling a word, any pairs of numbers or letters are often said as “double.” For example, the phone number 01438 622944 would be said as, “zero one four three eight, six double-two, nine double-four.” If the last six digits were 655553, it would be said as, “six double-five double-five three.” Similarly, the word “ball” would be said as, “b-a-double-l.”

So, I thought I understood it until I heard someone spell the name of our school, Collenswood. It was, “C-o-double-l-w-o-o-d.”

I was hoping it would have been, “C-o-double-l-double-u-double-o-d.”


(In case that’s not clear, the ‘w’ is up there as both ‘w’ and ‘double-u.’)

So I suppose that this title should really be ‘A-double-c-e-n-t-s – Part Four.’