this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2026
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xkcd #3232: Countdown Standard

Title text:

Anyone who is caught counting 'three ... two ... one ... zero ... GO!' will be punished with a lifetime of eating only ISO standard food samples.

Transcript:

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Source: https://xkcd.com/3232/

explainxkcd for #3232

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[–] HereIAm@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The three syllable 'w' kinda ruins it.

[–] SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Eh everyone says "dubya" anyways

[–] Ispanico@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Holy shit, is that why people call george w bush dubya? As a non native English speaker I wouldn't have thought of that in a million years

[–] SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 hours ago

Yep! Also, if you aren't familiar with the way words are either stressed or elided in spoken english, you're probably so confused when you hear native speakers talk 😅

We literally don't pronounce most of the sounds in most of the words we say. If you go around pronouncing every syllable of every word you'll sound insane

[–] ssladam@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Still, all other letters only clock 1 syllable. I vote we just go ahead and change the standard to "dub".

[–] SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 16 hours ago

But if we do that, we'll need a new alphabet song!

(also, since letters [sorta] contain their respective sounds, I suggest "wub")