fabulous Silly Beth--an aural palindrome

[asakiyume]

Little Springtime has a fun free app on her phone: Backwords (there are other versions that aren't free; this is a free version). You record a word or phrase, and it will play it back to you backward. You then play the backward version for other people, and they try as best they can to duplicate the sounds they hear. You record their attempts and play those backwards, and then see if, from that, you can tell what the original word or phrase was. If they copied the backward sounds fairly accurately, then when their attempts are played backward, you'll hear something pretty close to the original word or phrase, but often slurred and strange.

In the course of doing this, we discovered an aural palindrome: the word "fabulous," played backward, sounds like "silly Beth." If you record yourself saying "fabulous silly Beth" and play that backward, what you get is "fabulous silly Beth." Technically, that can't be--since the last sound in the original is a th- sound, not an f- sound, but it's close enough so you hear it as an aural palindrome.


Finn's Fabulous Hair by The Jozz on DeviantART

Comments

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

This app would be loved by heavy metal bands. :)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

True!

It's actually *very* interesting from a language-learning perspective too, and interesting to see how tonal English sounds when you reverse it--many ups and downs.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

There's a story in there! Or several... :)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Or a funny rhyme maybe :-)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think I can see how an 'f' sound would be like a "th" when played backwards.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah--it's really interesting to think about palindromes on the level of not letters or syllables but actual voiced *sounds*.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

I love English phonology. It's an adorable land of anarchy and brilliance.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

You would really love this game. I don't have a smartphone, so I can only do it when my daughter's around.

(I love your icon, by the way!)