Eye - RAW - nick

When our interviewers first show up at work, they are given what we call a brief. It's typically a one- or two-page document giving them the job number and other details of the job they'll be calling on that night. It's sort of like on Mission Impossible, except that ours don't self-destruct.

"Other details" often includes instructions on how to pronounce unusual names, locations, or other such words. Phonetic pronunciations, like the one for the title of this post, are provided for the interviewers. Sometimes these are somewhat less than helpful because one of our project managers doesn't have English as his first language. But I digress.

As I was reading the brief for a job we started last night, I couldn't help but notice one of the words for which they had provided pronunciation help:

   Phonics (Fawn - ix)

I didn't know whether to laugh or groan. So I did both.