[PASSED] Disease Naming Compact

[Tinhampton]

On the 17th of March 2020, Disease Naming Compact became GA#484!

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This proposal has been submitted to the General Assembly Health Board.
NOTE: at 0345 GMT on the 13th of March 2020, this proposal reached quorum with One Small Island's approval, the 73rd all told.

TINHAMPTONIAN MINISTRY OF WORLD ASSEMBLY AFFAIRS: Notice of Submission Warning
A couple of weeks, unless this draft is perfect (doubtful) or atrocious (quite likely!).

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Character count: 1,842
Word count: 283

IC: Please take up your quibbles with Delegate-Ambassador Alexander Smith.
OOC: Vaguely inspired by WHO/OIE/FAO best practice - which is how COVID-19 got the name it did.
OOC 2: This resolution would create ABCD if passed, but does not create a medical ethics board for EPARC (that honour belongs to GA#389).

Disease Naming Compact
A resolution to modify universal standards of healthcare.

Category: Health

Area of Effect: Bioethics

Proposed by: Tinhampton

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Noting that both novel and recurring communicable diseases affect a diverse array of species in many member states, and that names for these diseases (as well as their vectors) can offer consistency and clarity whenever used,

Dismayed that there is no international consensus on the naming of novel communicable diseases, in particular those which could cross borders, and thus no single reference point for them; so imperiling the safety of those infected and the sanity of doctors who have to slug through pages of bureaucracy simply to find out what is to be treated, and

Committing to confidently cut down the currently cumbersome, copious compilations of confusing classifications which can crop up continually in the catalogue of communicable conditions...

The General Assembly hereby:

1. creates, within the Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response Center (EPARC) of the World Health Authority, an Agency for the Branding of Communicable Diseases (ABCD),
2. tasks ABCD with proposing in short order to EPARC's Medical Ethics Board names for those communicable diseases with no suitable name in common use, which have not previously been detected in sapient species and are likely to lead EPARC to confirm an international outbreak; and publicising those names once speedily confirmed by that Board to be appropriately informative,
3. requires member states and healthcare organisations to use ABCD-publicised names for particular diseases when communicating about them to the public (but encourages other entities to use such names as intended); and to refrain from funding internal attempts to name such diseases where ABCD can do so efficiently, speedily, and on an international scale, and
4. clarifies that this resolution does not affect the naming or taxonomy (such as binomial nomenclature) of disease vectors.

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Drafts of Yore:
Draft 3c: As above, except with EPARC's Medical Ethics Board having to assess names on the additional criterion of being "easily pronouncable." As a result, Articles b and c merged into Article b, with slight rewordings. Remove superfluous "(WHA)" in brackets from Article a.

Draft 3b: As above, except with EPARC's MEB having to assess names on the additional criteria of being "avoid[ing] terms which a reasonable person would deem offensive and omit[ting] the names and taxonomies of any sentient species." Articles d and e have also been merged in Draft 3c into just Article d, with some brevity amendments; also correct "binominal" in the final Article to "binomial."

Draft 3a: As above, except without the final Article.

Disease Naming Compact
A resolution to reduce barriers to free trade and commerce.

Category: Free Trade

Strength: Mild

Proposed by: Tinhampton

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Noting that both novel and recurring communicable diseases affect a diverse array of species in many member states, and that names for these diseases (as well as their vectors) can offer consistency and clarity whenever used, and

Dismayed that there is no international consensus on the naming of novel communicable diseases, especially those which could cross borders...

The General Assembly hereby:

1. creates, within the Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response Center (EPARC) of the World Health Authority (WHA), an Agency for the Branding of Communicable Diseases (ABCD),
2. tasks ABCD with proposing in short order to EPARC's Medical Ethics Board ("the board") names for those communicable diseases with no suitable name in common use, which have not previously been detected in sapient species and are likely to lead EPARC to confirm an international outbreak; and publicising those names once cleared for use by the board,
3. orders the board, when clearing proposed names for use, to speedily ensure that they are appropriately informative and easily pronounceable, that they avoid terms which a reasonable person would deem offensive and omit the names and taxonomies of any sentient species,
4. requires member states and healthcare organisations to use ABCD-publicised names for particular diseases when communicating about them to the public, but encourages other entities to use such names as intended, and
5. forbids member states from imposing tariffs or duties (except as a counter-measure against dumping) upon any vaccine developed by another member state or the WHA's Health Research & Development Division, which aims to inoculate against any disease defined by EPARC as a serious disease and has been certified safe to use by the recipient member within its jurisdiction.

Draft 1: preserved by SL; CLICK HERE to read it

[Sierra Lyricalia]

Viral Disease Naming Compact
A resolution to modify universal standards of healthcare.

Category: Health

Area of Effect: Bioethics

Proposed by: Tinhampton

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Noting that both novel and recurring viral diseases affect a diverse array of species in many member states, and that names for these diseases (as well as for the viruses themselves) can offer consistency and clarity whenever used, and

Dismayed that there is no international consensus on the naming of novel viral diseases, especially those which could spread across borders, including the culturally-sensitive handling thereof...

The General Assembly hereby:

1. creates, within the Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response Center (EPARC) of the World Health Authority, a Subcommittee for the Useful Naming of Viral Diseases (SUNViD),
2. tasks SUNViD with proposing in short order to EPARC's Medical Ethics Board ("the board") names for those viral diseases with no suitable name in common use, which have not previously been detected in sapient species and are likely to lead EPARC to confirm an international outbreak; and publicising those names once cleared for use by the board,
3. orders the board, when clearing proposed names for use, to speedily ensure that they are appropriately informative, easily pronounceable, and avoid terms that a reasonable person would deem offensive (including job titles and the names of individuals, nations, sentient species, and the World Assembly or any WA committees), and
4. requires member states and healthcare organisations to use SUNViD-publicised names for particular viral diseases when communicating about them to the public, but encourages other entities to use such names as intended.

OOC: Sorry to drop character in the very first reply, but I can't do it IC: do you mean to restrict the use of the term "Lou Gehrig's Disease" to describe amyotrophic lateral sclerosis? Or is this "merely" a prohibition on naming (say) venereal diseases after Trump?

Also, while I'd want my colleagues to weigh in before pronouncing this a problem, I'm worried about the category/area of effect. This doesn't actually restrict research or reduce health spending, which is what the Bioethics AoE does. I'm hard-pressed to think of further requirements that might fit the category as well as work with what you've already written, but there's gotta be something, yeah?

[Excidium Planetis]

"Ambassador, or not Ambassador, honestly, there's so many Tinhamptonian staff I can't keep track of them all," begins Cornelia Schultz, who apparently was already in this particular drafting room from the get go, just sitting quietly in the corner of the room as one does, "I'm not sure how things go in your nation, but there's a fairly large number of diseases in mine named after people or places. Alzheimer's disease. Okay maybe that one isn't a viral disease but it was the first one that came to mind. I think there was a strain of Influenza that was named after an ancient Terran nation. None of these names are what I would call offensive to a reasonable person. Hell, you could have 'Excidian Flu' and if that worked as an accurate name I don't think a reasonable person could consider that offensive.

"I also question why this proposal deals exclusively with viral diseases. Surely there's benefit in having standardized naming conventions for parasitic, bacterial, fungal and prion-based diseases as well? Maybe just eliminate the instances of virus and replace them all with either just 'disease' or 'disease vector' depending on whether you mean the disease itself or the thing that spreads it."

[Bananaistan]

Also, while I'd want my colleagues to weigh in before pronouncing this a problem, I'm worried about the category/area of effect. This doesn't actually restrict research or reduce health spending, which is what the Bioethics AoE does. I'm hard-pressed to think of further requirements that might fit the category as well as work with what you've already written, but there's gotta be something, yeah?

OOC: There's the committee rule too. I don't think merely receiving paperwork from the committee, IE using the approved name, is anymore of a measurable burden than filing paperwork with the committee. I'd need to see an actual operative clause before advising on category/AoE.

Edit: @Timhampton, to clarify, I'm not convinced that there is a committee rule problem, so don't amend on my account just yet please.

[The Yellow Monkey]

I think this idea is good and ties in nicely with current events. Definitely something I could support.

I share the concerns that this might be a bit too close to a "Committee only" proposal however. 98% percent of the proposal is just creating a committee and watching it do things. The only part of the proposal that calls for engagement with a member nation is the last clause, which amounts to "when the committee names a virus, allyall gotta call it the same thing" which is pretty damn thin. I don't ordinarily like slippery-slope arguments, but if a mostly-committee proposal with this little activity with member nations is legal then the rule basically doesn't exist. Future proposals could create a committee, watch it do things, and then with the final breath command member nations to read the committee's yearly newsletter and archive it in their national library - and be legal.

Edit: Also agree it's probably not Bioethics. SL's point about the affects of that category (reducing research and limiting health spending) is strong. There is no way a new committee tasked with doing a hell of a lot of research in order to come up with names for newly emergent viruses isn't going to cost a bit extra (and not just medical research, cultural research too spanning thousands of cultures so that new names "avoid terms that a reasonable person would deem offensive"). Also, even just looking at the concept of "Bioethics" apart from the national stat effects of that category, it's not clear to me that naming the viruses in an informative, easily pronounceable, non-offensive way is a matter of medical ethics.

[Tinhampton]

TL;WR: Draft #2 now proposes a WA single market (almost...) in vaccines for serious diseases.

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IN RESPONSE TO SL AND BANANA

OOC: Sorry to drop character in the very first reply, but I can't do it IC: do you mean to restrict the use of the term "Lou Gehrig's Disease" to describe amyotrophic lateral sclerosis? Or is this "merely" a prohibition on naming (say) venereal diseases after Trump?

This only applies to viral diseases, as is evident, although I am flexible with removing the parenthetical index of forbidden terms in Article c, or whittling it down to names of sentient species (as is the case with my new Draft #2) if such will prove to be a sticky point. Using animal names in disease names has previously backfired: take, for instance, Egypt slaughtering all of their pigs in response to swine flu.

...I'm worried about the category/area of effect. This doesn't actually restrict research or reduce health spending, which is what the Bioethics AoE does. I'm hard-pressed to think of further requirements that might fit the category as well as work with what you've already written, but there's gotta be something, yeah?

...there's gotta be something, yeah?

OOC: There's the committee rule too. I don't think merely receiving paperwork from the committee, IE using the approved name, is anymore of a measurable burden than filing paperwork with the committee. I'd need to see an actual operative clause before advising on category/AoE.

Is Article e of one's newly-fangled second draft (now provisionally catted as FreeTrade/Mild) an acceptable Clause of Operation?

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IN RESPONSE TO TYM

I think this idea is good and ties in nicely with current events. Definitely something I could support.

Ten points (see also HR#90, first proposed by Tejasdom two days after the tsunami of 26/12/2004 and passed a month later after much amendment - I'm comparatively slow). You will now receive three questions on the subject of Discarded GA Resolutions

I share the concerns that this might be a bit too close to a "Committee only" proposal however. 98% percent of the proposal is just creating a committee and watching it do things. The only part of the proposal that calls for engagement with a member nation is the last clause, which amounts to "when the committee names a virus, allyall gotta call it the same thing" which is pretty damn thin. I don't ordinarily like slippery-slope arguments, but if a mostly-committee proposal with this little activity be member nations is legal than the rule basically doesn't exist. Future proposals could just create a committee, watch it do things, and then command member nations to read the committee's yearly newsletter and archive it in their national library - and be legal.

Agreed. See Article e of the new draft, as mentioned above.

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IN RESPONSE TO EP

"Ambassador, or not Ambassador, honestly, there's so many Tinhamptonian staff I can't keep track of them all," begins Cornelia Schultz, who apparently was already in this particular drafting room from the get go, just sitting quietly in the corner of the room as one does

(OOC: There are a lot )

"I'm not sure how things go in your nation, but there's a fairly large number of diseases in mine named after people or places. Alzheimer's disease. Okay maybe that one isn't a viral disease but it was the first one that came to mind. I think there was a strain of Influenza that was named after an ancient Terran nation. None of these names are what I would call offensive to a reasonable person. Hell, you could have 'Excidian Flu' and if that worked as an accurate name I don't think a reasonable person could consider that offensive."

Delegate-Ambassador Alexander Smith: The aim of these restrictions are to ensure that the World Assembly's SUNViD [say "sun-vid"] does not implicitly serve to have a detrimental effect on free trade with any nation. I've cut down the list to just the names of sentient species in this one, but will remove it entirely if unjustified.

"I also question why this proposal deals exclusively with viral diseases. Surely there's benefit in having standardized naming conventions for parasitic, bacterial, fungal and prion-based diseases as well? Maybe just eliminate the instances of virus and replace them all with either just 'disease' or 'disease vector' depending on whether you mean the disease itself or the thing that spreads it."

Smith: Done and done. Draft number two for your perusal.

[The Yellow Monkey]

...Free Trade... Mild... forbids member states from imposing tariffs or duties (except as a counter-measure against dumping) upon any vaccine developed by another member state or the WHA's Health Research & Development Division, which aims to inoculate against any disease defined by EPARC as a serious disease and has been certified safe to use by the recipient member within its jurisdiction.

I hate this tactic. The majority of what you're proposing has nothing to do with Free Trade. You may be right that tacking on a marginally-related provision about tariffs to a proposal that otherwise has nothing to do with trade avoids the committee only rule. But it violates the requirements of the Category rule (See the Rules: "The proposal's content must align with the chosen category"). Interpreted like this the Free Trade category swallows all other categories: any proposal, regardless of the majority of the content, can get into it simply by adding an "also, don't tax this" clause to the end.

Further, there's no honorable triumph in this sort of rules bending. The Free Trade category is the easy mode of this game, right there with Civil Rights and Environmental. You've been around a good long time; I thought you were looking for a challenge to write a rare proposal type - not just trying to find a way, any way, to make this disease-naming committee proposal legal.

Maybe try this instead:

Requires Member Nations to cease spending national resources on domestic disease-naming efforts and research once the ABCD is able to perform those tasks efficiently and expeditiously

This answers SL's concern about the BioEthics category by attempting to fit that category, via a clause directly reducing national health spending. It also answers (perhaps fully, perhaps not) concerns about Committee only, since there is clearly a requirement for Member Nations to do something beyond merely interacting with a committee. It also may sound nice to voters (if you can word it properly, which I'm not sure I've done here) who shouldn't mind saving the extra coin.

I'm not saying its perfect, but I think this is the better road than the Free Trade road you're ready to embark on.

You may also want to pad the preamble a bit to justify this legislation. Here's a thought:

Believing that it would be confusing, cumbersome, inefficient, and ultimately harmful to patients if medical literature were littered with multiple names for the same disease simply because there was no central disease-naming authority

This frames the issue a bit more in the BioEthics line, because you've now pointed to an ethical reason (relating to harm to patients) why it is proper to limit Member Nations from using their own disease nomenclature rather than a collective WA one. You might not convince everyone, but at least some folks will understand that it is more efficient for medical research (and therefore for patients) if the medical community adopts standardized names rather than having potentially thousands of names for the same disease floating around.

Hope that helps.

[Tinhampton]

Draft #3 up (ta much, TYM!). The mark of a badge hunter is writing terrible proposals on obvious subjects; the mark of a badge adventurer is striving for rather good proposals on subjects that look obvious but really aren't...

To clarify, I've been here for quite a while - but have, until very recently, been scared by the festering snakes

[Araraukar]

OOC: I'll get back to you in IC after a while, just need to figure out what kind of character might be needing to put up with (normally) Janis on medical issues while she stays in the WAHQ, to RP this properly, but first...

Is this forbidding use of binomial names? Not in proposals, but in IC RP. Because in RL species (yes, viruses count) of disease microbes are often named as [genus name] and [finder's name or location it was found in or in honor of someone involved in making that type of organism famous]. That necessarily means that binomial names have references to existing places and people. And I've certainly adopted that practice for Araraukarian culture. (I mean, heck, the national animal has even its everyday name include its finder's name. Which is the nickname of my RL friend.)

[Tinhampton]

OOC: I'll get back to you in IC after a while, just need to figure out what kind of character might be needing to put up with (normally) Janis on medical issues while she stays in the WAHQ, to RP this properly, but first...

Is this forbidding use of binomial names? Not in proposals, but in IC RP. Because in RL species (yes, viruses count) of disease microbes are often named as [genus name] and [finder's name or location it was found in or in honor of someone involved in making that type of organism famous]. That necessarily means that binomial names have references to existing places and people. And I've certainly adopted that practice for Araraukarian culture. (I mean, heck, the national animal has even its everyday name include its finder's name. Which is the nickname of my RL friend.)

Behold Draft 3b, which clarifies that Disease Naming Compact does not affect the naming of disease vectors, only that of diseases (such as "swine flu" or "severe acute respiratory syndrome," neither of which are binomial names for viruses).

To take the first example that comes to mind, COVID-19 roughly stands for "coronavirus disease 2019," but this only affects the name given by the WHO to the actual disease, not the name of the actual coronavirus which is responsible for its transmission (as such). The WHO is clear that taxonomy is not in the remit of its best practice for disease naming, and I intend to apply those standards here.

ICly, your point of contact for this resolution is Alexander Smith.

[Bears Armed]

...Free Trade... Mild... forbids member states from imposing tariffs or duties (except as a counter-measure against dumping) upon any vaccine developed by another member state or the WHA's Health Research & Development Division, which aims to inoculate against any disease defined by EPARC as a serious disease and has been certified safe to use by the recipient member within its jurisdiction.

I hate this tactic. The majority of what you're proposing has nothing to do with Free Trade. You may be right that tacking on a marginally-related provision about tariffs to a proposal that otherwise has nothing to do with trade avoids the committee only rule. But it violates the requirements of the Category rule (See the Rules: "The proposal's content must align with the chosen category"). Interpreted like this the Free Trade category swallows all other categories: any proposal, regardless of the majority of the content, can get into it simply by adding an "also, don't tax this" clause to the end.

OOC
No, that only works when -- as here -- the 'Free Trade' clause would actually have more effects than (all the rest of the operative section, together) on the member nations. In this case, I would have called it legal.

[The Yellow Monkey]

Is this forbidding use of binomial names? Not in proposals, but in IC RP. Because in RL species (yes, viruses count) of disease microbes are often named as [genus name] and [finder's name or location it was found in or in honor of someone involved in making that type of organism famous]. That necessarily means that binomial names have references to existing places and people. And I've certainly adopted that practice for Araraukarian culture.

Behold Draft 3b, which clarifies that Disease Naming Compact does not affect the naming of disease vectors, only that of diseases (such as "swine flu" or "severe acute respiratory syndrome," neither of which are binomial names for viruses).

To take the first example that comes to mind, COVID-19 roughly stands for "coronavirus disease 2019," but this only affects the name given by the WHO to the actual disease, not the name of the actual coronavirus which is responsible for its transmission (as such). The WHO is clear that taxonomy is not in the remit of its best practice for disease naming, and I intend to apply those standards here.

Assuming the new provision satisfies Ara, I think there is still something objectionable to this:

orders the board, when clearing proposed [disease] names for use, to speedily ensure that they are appropriately informative and easily pronounceable, that they avoid terms which a reasonable person would deem offensive and omit the names and taxonomies of any sentient species,

Why? I mean, okay, maybe avoid "offensive" terms like "the jerk virus" or "firey bum disease." Maybe. If those are the "appropriately informative and easily pronounceable" names for those diseases I'm not sure why such censorship is in order.

More to the point, why "omit the names and taxonomies of any sentient species?" There are already many diseases that use the names of sentient species, including Araraukarian Fever, The Paul H. Smith Armpit Discomfort, and Grays Harbor Crankiness Disorder. (RL examples include the West Nile Virus and Spanish Flu.) It's a minor point but I guess I don't fully understand why we must omit the names of sentient species (assuming that means the names used by that species and not just the literal species name, like Human Papillomavirus). If a pioneer in medicine from Bears Armed worked to discover the disease, why not let it be called The Bears Armed Uncomfortable Belly Rash?

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I hate this tactic. The majority of what you're proposing has nothing to do with Free Trade. You may be right that tacking on a marginally-related provision about tariffs to a proposal that otherwise has nothing to do with trade avoids the committee only rule. But it violates the requirements of the Category rule (See the Rules: "The proposal's content must align with the chosen category"). Interpreted like this the Free Trade category swallows all other categories: any proposal, regardless of the majority of the content, can get into it simply by adding an "also, don't tax this" clause to the end.

OOC
No, that only works when -- as here -- the 'Free Trade' clause would actually have more effects than (all the rest of the operative section, together) on the member nations. In this case, I would have called it legal.

Okay, well I still dislike the tactic if it involves taking something which otherwise wouldn't fit into any category well and Free Trade-izing it by slapping a semi-related taxation ban on the end.

Tinhampton if you changed your draft based on my impression of the Category rule you may want to consider this. But I stand by the principle behind the objection and by my comments on the lack of righteousness in pursuing such tactics.

[Bears Armed]

OOC
"sentient"? "sapient"?

[Imperium Anglorum]

Just stick with people if discussing that sort of stuff.

[Tinhampton]

The slope has been slipped... behold Draft #3c, now with 50% less censorship-related shitshow than the previous recipe

[Araraukar]

requires member states and healthcare organisations to use ABCD-publicised names for particular diseases when communicating about them to the public (but encourages other entities to use such names as intended); and to refrain from funding internal attempts to name such diseases where ABCD can do so efficiently, speedily, and on an international scale

OOC: ...so basically doesn't affect national-anything, especially if the national system does it more efficiently and faster than an international committee can?

Also, in IC, "and easily pronounceable" is going to be difficult. Across the RL human species, I think it was something like A, O, K and S (possibly M) that are the only properly common noises in speech around the globe. Multiply that by howevermany species you have in the WA, and you're in trouble.

As personal example, I'm a Finn. I learned Finnish as my native language. So my brain's wired to using the Finnish pronunciations. I can't easily distinguish, when speaking English, between B and P, because B isn't really a letter used in Finnish (aside from loan words). Usually one can tell from the word being used, but not always. Similarly I have trouble with V and W, because the latter, again, isn't a Finnish letter. Also Z, when you can't pronounce it as "ts".

And of Spanish pronunciations (which I've been learning this winter), for the life of me I can't get the throat noises for X and G right, and the soft R in any language is the bane of me, because Finnish only has a hard rolling R. Which I know is, in turn, difficult for English-speakers to get right. (And don't even get me started on other language speakers being totally clueless about double consonants.)

So I'm REALLY going to question the sanity of the proposal on that. Not to even mention that if the name of a disease is - a (partial) example from RL, "hemorragic fever" (in English), if it can be directly translated like "verenvuotokuume" (in Finnish), why should it have a name like "kosakokomaso" or something like that, which tells nobody absolutely anything about what it is and what it does?

[Tinhampton]

requires member states and healthcare organisations to use ABCD-publicised names for particular diseases when communicating about them to the public (but encourages other entities to use such names as intended); and to refrain from funding internal attempts to name such diseases where ABCD can do so efficiently, speedily, and on an international scale

OOC: ...so basically doesn't affect national-anything, especially if the national system does it more efficiently and faster than an international committee can?

I did not say "where ABCD can do so more efficiently and more quickly" than the national system - only that it can do so with efficiency and speed, which are its main objectives.

Also, in IC, "and easily pronounceable" is going to be difficult. Across the RL human species, I think it was something like A, O, K and S (possibly M) that are the only properly common noises in speech around the globe. Multiply that by howevermany species you have in the WA, and you're in trouble...

...I'm REALLY going to question the sanity of the proposal on that. Not to even mention that if the name of a disease is - a (partial) example from RL, "hemorragic fever" (in English), if it can be directly translated like "verenvuotokuume" (in Finnish), why should it have a name like "kosakokomaso" or something like that, which tells nobody absolutely anything about what it is and what it does?

The EPARC medical ethics board is charged with ensuring that communicable disease names are "appropriately informative," which would mean not only being appropriate and informative, but also sufficiently laconic (and - hopefully - with few syllables!) - an overly long disease name may carry information about the disease, but it would be too clunky to be appropriately informative. In the real world, H5N1 is H5N1, COVID-19 is COVID-19 and ebola is ebola no matter where you go.

[Araraukar]

OOC: H1N5 is the virus, not the disease. Ebola was named after a river of that name. And what are you going to do with Marburg hemorragic fever? Or Puumala hemorragic fever?

In fact, how are you going to keep a name informative AND easily pronouncable AND the same across the WA? It can't be all three, especially for diseases that already have established names.

[Tinhampton]

OOC: [...] how are you going to keep a name informative AND easily pronouncable AND the same across the WA? It can't be all three, especially for diseases that already have established names.

While I agree with your concerns and will probably remove the pronouncability requirement in Draft 3d, please note that "The General Assembly hereby: tasks ABCD with proposing [...] names for those communicable diseases with no suitable name in common use..."

[Imperium Anglorum]

How do you pronounce ABCD?

[Tinhampton]

How do you pronounce ABCD?

Ay-bee-cee-dee - a bit like you would if you were spelling out the letters of the alphabet

No, "ab-si-de" is the pronounciation of Abcde, we can't have any further confusion going on there

[Excidium Planetis]

How do you pronounce ABCD?

Ay-bee-cee-dee - a bit like you would if you were spelling out the letters of the alphabet

OOC:
Given that IA believes his own name is pronounced EE-AH, I'm not sure your assertion that ABCE is pronounced Ay-Bee-Cee-Dee will be accepted.

[Araraukar]

OOC: Given that IA believes his own name is pronounced EE-AH, I'm not sure your assertion that ABCE is pronounced Ay-Bee-Cee-Dee will be accepted.

OOC: Didn't know IA was Finnish.

I'd pronounce ABCD as "aa bee see dee" but the a's are "ah"s, and e's are the e in "bet/get/set". And they're actually doubles, not the 1.5's that English uses as double vowels normally.

And "Araraukar" is pronounced "AH-rah-rah-oo-kar" with each vowel actually a SHORT one, this time...

[Tinhampton]

From the director of Draft 1, Draft 2, and the Draft 3 trilogy comes the smash hit you've all been waiting for...

will submit in a few days if there are no more serious complaints that I have not already addressed

[Imperium Anglorum]

Ay-bee-cee-dee - a bit like you would if you were spelling out the letters of the alphabet

OOC:
Given that IA believes his own name is pronounced EE-AH, I'm not sure your assertion that ABCE is pronounced Ay-Bee-Cee-Dee will be accepted.

Ai-ah. Abciddy.