09 June 2007

take that, ZYZZYVAS!


zzyzx originally uploaded by brhino!
credit to my friend Brian, who found this sign on his road trip back to the west coast and snapped the picture. i almost have to believe that whoever named this "road" did so solely to make sure that it was dead last alphabetically. and it certainly beats out ZYZZYVAS, the alphabetically last entry in the Scrabble OWL4. and it actually has a semi-practical pronunciation...at least i would say [ˈzɪz.ɪks].

so i guess this gives an answer to the old "what's in a name?" question: whatever orthographic folly you want, if all you're naming is a dirt path in the middle of nowhere.

[update: sigh, i guess there's a wealth more of information on this place, as well as a number of other things inspired by the name. and it's not pronounced how i thought either, although i think the actual pronunciation goes somewhat against my orthography-phonology intuitions (although admittedly, English is just completely screwed up and such intuitions generally mean very little). ah well.]

1 comment:

pc said...

Whoah. This is awesome.