Wednesday 25 April 2012

How do you pronounce this?

This has bugged me for years. There's this acronym on the window of a building I pass at Northumbria University:


I've sort of been pronouncing it like 'New Deal' in my mind (never having had cause to say it out loud). But maybe it's pronounced like 'noodle'.

Both have their pros and cons. New Deal is a bit more relevant than noodle to a design innovation lab, I suppose, but it's a sort of unwieldy phrase to have as your acronym. Then again, www is famously three times as many syllables as the phrase it's 'short' for. Also, the DIL is capitalised like it should be stressed.

Noodle seems a bit unrelated to design, and involves pronouncing the 'nu' as if you're from the Southeast (of England - think Jimmy Carr), but on the other hand it's a good word and fun to say.

Thoughts?

2 comments:

  1. Neither, actually. It's more like "noo-d'il" in my head. Slightly more like "noodle" than "new deal" but not much.

    I'm guessing that calling them up and seeing how they answer the phone would spoil the fun?? ;)

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