Names of Letters
The spoken Polish names of the letters are given in the table under Letters above. The additional letters Q, V and X are named ku, fau and iks.
The names of the letters are not normally written out in the way shown above, except as part of certain lexicalized abbreviations, such as Pekao (or PeKaO), the name of a bank, which represents the spoken form of the abbreviation P.K.O.
Some letters may be referred to in alternative ways, often consisting of just the sound of the letter. For example, Y may be called y rather than igrek.
When giving the spelling of words, certain letters may be said in more emphatic ways to distinguish them from other identically pronounced characters. For example, H may be referred to as samo h ("h alone") to distinguish it from CH (ce ha). The letter Ż may be called żet (or zet) z kropką ("Ż with a dot") to distinguish it from RZ (er zet). The letter U may be called u otwarte ("open u", a reference to its graphical form), to distinguish it from Ó, which is sometimes called u zamknięte ("closed u").
Read more about this topic: Polish Alphabet
Famous quotes containing the words names of, names and/or letters:
“Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Men have sometimes exchanged names with their friends, as if they would signify that in their friend each loved his own soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“After the planet becomes theirs, many millions of years will have to pass before a beetle particularly loved by God, at the end of its calculations will find written on a sheet of paper in letters of fire that energy is equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. The new kings of the world will live tranquilly for a long time, confining themselves to devouring each other and being parasites among each other on a cottage industry scale.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)