How Do You Spell Aa In Thai

[Richard W]

Possibly not Thailand-related, but...

Last night, I drove two Thai ladies to work as their normal transport had broken down. When I asked how they would get home, I was told (in Thai) or overheard (?) that the AA had already fixed it while I was picking them up. While navigating a road full of parked cars, I replied in Thai, but then realised that I wasn't sure how to write my reply in Thai. My reply was:

เอ. ๆ ทำ ดี จริง ๆ [M]ee[M]ee [M]tham [M]dii [M]jing[M]jing 'The AA did well indeed.'

Have I spelt it right? I can't help feeling that perhaps 'AA' (which started out as the abbreviation of 'Automobile Association') should be เอ. เอ. rather than เอ. ๆ

Edited December 3, 2004 by Richard W

[ProfessorFart]

That does seem to be the Thai way of spelling the English 'A'

There is a listing of Thai spellings of English Letters in one or other of the small learners dictionaries but I can't remember which.

I'd have bunged in a 'Borisut' before the 'AA' as well just to highlight who I was talking about.

[the scouser]

Hi Richard,

I have no grammatical reasoning to back this up, but as a visceral instinct I would physically reduplicate the "a" as it's a proper noun.

Scouse.

[meadish_sweetball]

Hi Richard,

I have no grammatical reasoning to back this up, but as a visceral instinct I would physically reduplicate the "a" as it's a proper noun.

Scouse.

I think that makes the most sense too.

Intuitively, I would even consider skipping the stops. (There doesnt seem to be a clear rule governing stops in abbreviations - the people I have asked say you have to treat them on a case-by-case basis. They may have been ignorant of any existing rules though - does anybody else know perhaps?

[RDN]

Hi Richard,

I have no grammatical reasoning to back this up, but as a visceral instinct I would physically reduplicate the "a" as it's a proper noun.

Scouse.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think that makes the most sense too.

Intuitively, I would even consider skipping the stops. (There doesnt seem to be a clear rule governing stops in abbreviations - the people I have asked say you have to treat them on a case-by-case basis. They may have been ignorant of any existing rules though - does anybody else know perhaps?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In SE-ED's dictionary, the very first word is "A" and it's pronunciation shown in Thai is เอ, but no 'full stop'.

[Richard W]

Hi Richard,

I have no grammatical reasoning to back this up, but as a visceral instinct I would physically reduplicate the "a" as it's a proper noun.

Scouse.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There's certainly precedence for having to write it out in full because it's a proper noun. A Google search for เกาะพี found เกาะพี พี and เกาะ พีพี, but nothing like เกาะพี ๆ.

[Richard W]

Intuitively, I would even consider skipping the stops.  (There doesnt seem to be a clear rule governing stops in abbreviations - the people I have asked say you have to treat them on a case-by-case basis. They may have been ignorant of any existing rules though - does anybody else know perhaps?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In SE-ED's dictionary, the very first word is "A" and it's pronunciation shown in Thai is เอ, but no 'full stop'.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

On the other hand, in the Thai translation of the second edition of Kernighan & Ritchie's book on C, there are full stops after the initials of the authors, each of which is spelt out phonetically. The 'W' is spelt out in full, which always seems bizarre.