Phonetic alphabets

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:27 PM -0600 12/5/04, Barbara Need wrote:
>>
>
>I've actually been asked to spell MY last name, most of my life! The
>polite version is
>
>N as in North
>double E
>D
>
>This I heard from my mother when I was young. My brother or sister,
>one day when really frustrated, suggested it ought to end
>
>and
>D as in Dumb!
>
>Barbara Need

I don't know.  Google shows 1540 hits for "Neade", most of them
apparently surnames, so it's not out of the question.  (Not to
mention all the folks surnamed "Knead"...)
  I not only get requests for how I spell "Horn", but often the
outright assumption that it's "Horne". The nice thing about
four-letter names is that they're quick to spell.

Larry (< "Laurence-with-a-u")