NationStates Jolt Archive

Here's something I'd like to share with you all. I have no idea why, but I've, apparently subconciously, always assigned personalities to the individual letters of the alphabet. Thinking back I've done it pretty much all my life. It's not like I tell little stories about them or anything, or constantly think about them as people whenever I read or write, but all the characters just seem to have... well, characters, in my head. Some of them are more well rounded than others, but I can definately assign a gender to each. Basically it seems to go as follows:

Aa - male, child
Bb - female, child
Cc - male, child
Dd - male
Ee - male
Ff - male
Gg - male, probably the oldest letter
Hh - female
Ii - male
Jj - male
Kk - female, may have some kind of romantic relationship with j
Ll - male
Mm - female
Nn - female
Oo - male, may have some kind of romantic relationship with either m or n
Pp - female
Qq - female, friends with u (and maybe more...)
Rr - female
Ss - female, very strong character, probably has the most influence in the whole of the alphabet
Tt - male, possibly in love with s, but she never returns his affections
Uu - female
Vv - male
Ww - female
Xx - male, guards z from the rest of the alphabet
Yy - male, guards z from the rest of the alphabet
Zz - male, king of the end of the alphabet (everything from u onwards)

Some of them seem to make some sorta sense, like a, b and c being children (them being the first and simplest part of the alphabet), or q being friends with u. There also seems to be some sorta Freudian symbolism working with some of the gender identities, like i, t, l and j being male while b, m, n are female, but then that doesn't explain at all why k is female or why o is male. So does anyone else do anything like this? Is this a form of synaesthesia? Or am I just completely nuts?

So does anyone else do anything like this? Is this a form of synaesthesia? Or am I just completely nuts?
Well, synaesthesia would be a fair bet, no? I must admit I have so far only heard about it in the context of associating sensations to the letters, but it doesn't seem far off.
I do, for example, connect colors to many (though not all) letters and digits, and at the same time assign every letter something that I wouldn't call a personality as in the way you described it, but more..attributes? Emotional responses to letters due to automatically connecting them with characteristics usually fit for humans, such as, say, "honest" or "sly" or "uncaring", maybe?

I used to do this a lot in my early teens, go around asking people to rate letters or to tell me which letter they preferred between two. I learned that people get irritated at that and that most people don't understand what the hell I'm on about, but still..I sometimes don't get that other people don't feel anything about letters. Freaks.

P.S. You're 'right' about S being the probably strongest and most influential letter in this alphabet ;)

I always liked "K"...for some reason, I always think of Benjamin Disraeli when I look at the letter.:confused:

I'm in love with the 'J'. I also like the number 10. Both have to do with my name and birthday and j is the 10th letter of the alphabet. Coincidence?

I am currently dating S.

I always liked "K"...for some reason, I always think of Benjamin Disraeli when I look at the letter.:confused:
I've come to terms with it. In elementary school it was rather weird because it felt really special and sublime and complex in an arrogant way that made me reluctant to want to write it. Yeah, so maybe I've been a strange kid.

J and K are together, but you got the the wrong way round - K is a guy, J is a girl.

I think G is old too, maybe because G is for Gandalf, and he used to write G on... stuff.

I is the assassin the alphabet, it's the letter that everyone overlooks.

D reminds me of a mob boss for some reason.

To me they represent pictures
A- apple
B- banana
C- cow
D- dog
E- elephant
F- frog
G- gorilla
H- hat
I- igloo
J- juggler
K- Ku Klux Klan
L- laser
M- money
N- net
O- octopus
P- party
Q- quail
R- ramp
S- scorpion
T- television
U- umbrella
V- valley
W- woman
X- xylophone
Z- zebra

To me they represent pictures
A- apple
B- banana
C- cow
D- dog
E- elephant
F- frog
G- gorilla
H- hat
I- igloo
J- juggler
K- Ku Klux Klan
L- laser
M- money
N- net
O- octopus
P- party
Q- quail
R- ramp
S- scorpion
T- television
U- umbrella
V- valley
W- woman
X- xylophone
Z- zebra
Does the opposite work too?

Hey, when you read K, you see KKK?

I did that with numbers when I was a child. I never thought anything of it until now.

0 - the nicest number, makes all other numbers more important (e.g. 1 becomes 10 becomes 100)
1 - a nonentity male until he associates with 0
2 - mother figure
3 - an unpleasant authoritarian male.
4 - nice, somewhat passive female.
5 - an unpleasant authoritarian female.
6 - nice guy
7 - an autocrat
8 - grande dame
9 - jack of all trades male

Hooray for you maybe having synesthesia! :) I have several types!

Facetographemia is one type of synesthesia I don't have, I've never dealt with the personality of numbers or fingers/toes.

I do, however, have several types of grapheme induced synesthesia: geusagraphia, optographia, chromagraphia, algigraphemia, and thermographemia.

You can read more about synesthesia here (http://www.mixsig.net/index.php)

I've always associated myself with X. Mysterious, uncommon, but useful.

X is kind of like the Smoking Man of the Alphabet.

I did that with numbers when I was a child. I never thought anything of it until now.

0 - the nicest number, makes all other numbers more important (e.g. 1 becomes 10 becomes 100)
1 - a nonentity male until he associates with 0
2 - mother figure
3 - an unpleasant authoritarian male.
4 - nice, somewhat passive female.
5 - an unpleasant authoritarian female.
6 - nice guy
7 - an autocrat
8 - grande dame
9 - jack of all trades male
I did this one-except 5 was in love with 4, 6 was 5's sidekick but didn't approve of 5's harshness (5 was kind of a dick). 9 was the peacekeeper, the big dog. 8 was 9's sidekick-7 used to be friends with 6 until he started to hang out with 5. 1 was a kid, 3 is a girl friend of 4, 2 was kind of like Linus from The Peanuts. 0 was a sort of moderator, the one that all the other numbers want to influence.

I think it was more to do with a tendency towards narrative rather than synesthesia. It certainly never made me better at math, just kept me awake.

I often think of characters for different alphabets...don't know why, but if this synthisizing stuff is normal..meh. Among the ones I'm familiar with:
English: Bold, to the point, aloof
Spanish: Proud of it's history, graceful
Arabic: Exotic, seductive, quick to anger
Hebrew: Proud of it's history, accessible, funny

Wait, other people did that too? i just thought I was wierd. I did it with both numbers and letters, but the numbers were more prominent. However, all the odd numbers were assholes.

I thought numbers were numbers and letters were letters, but I am a weird kid:D

I thought numbers were numbers and letters were letters, but I am a weird kid:D
Get him!

I, for some reason, have always disliked negative numbers (seeing them as bad or distasteful) and a feeling of relief to find that the answer of a question is positive (whether or not the factors are negative).

Well, I give Japanese Kanji personalities too, but that's only so I can actually remember the damn things. :p

SAGBTLMM - I think my initials are very confused then...


I was told I have osmogeusia, although I think they are crazy.


*edited for screwing up my own initials*

ive always thought of the days of the weeks as colours, especially when i was younger though...not kinda consciuosly, just it was there under the surface
sunday- greyish blue
monday - reddish pink
tuesday - turquoise
wednesday - turquoise too [but sometimes yellow, come to think of it]
thursday - a dark coral kind of orange
friday - midway between orange and yellow ish
saturday - olive green, almost black

tuesday has been the strongest. i always think of tuesday when i see the right shade of turquiose

i sound sort of weird in hindsight there...

I used to do this a lot in my early teens, go around asking people to rate letters or to tell me which letter they preferred between two. I learned that people get irritated at that and that most people don't understand what the hell I'm on about, but still..I sometimes don't get that other people don't feel anything about letters. Freaks.I've never done it with letters, but I've always felt certain ways about numbers and number combinations, preferring one to the other.

However, all the odd numbers were assholes.Pfft. Everybody knows that even numbers are the ones that suck, especially round numbers.

Pfft. Everybody knows that even numbers are the ones that suck, especially round numbers.
6 is hideous, but fortunately 7 comes along and sorts things out

Anarchuslaviz, you should look into other types of syn you might not know you have :). I assumed everything I saw/felt/heard was normal (everyone saw the same things I thought!) until a neurology class, heh.

I have several types of synesthesia:

Grapheme:Chromagraphemia (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v119/loveislikearson/syn.jpg), graphemes illicit colour
Geusalogia, graphemes/words illicit taste (Seeing Thur, makes me ill)

Emotion:
Thermesthesia, temperature illicits emotion (Right now I'm cold and that makes me anxious..)
Chronesthesia, units of time illicit emotions (specifically time of day, I don't so much relate to dates)
Chromesthesia, emotions illicit colour (So the phrase "I'm feeling blue" actually means something to me, except that when I'm sad its more teal :) )

Sight:
Chromopsia, I project colour (So my mother is peach, while my father is light tan. I see a halo of colour around people in pictures an in person)
Morphopsia, I also project shapes (So my mother when I think of her is a peach oval and my father is a light tan triangle)
Chromafacetia, people illicit colour (Mom-peach, Dad-tan, but this is when I see them in person)

Sound:
*Chromaphonia, sound illicits colour
*Optophonia, sound illicits sights
Chronophonia, sounds illicit units of time (I relate music to times of day, dates, periods of history)
*Morphophonia, sound illicits shapes
Geusaphonia, sound illicits taste (The sound of metal clinking together leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, and when you scrape your plate with a knife....its horrid for me)
Geusaphonemia, certain words illicit taste (Thursday tastes like having a penny in your mouth)

*So music is one giant LSD trip for me, heh.

Touch:
Thermotactilia, touching certain things gives me a feeling of temperature (Touching fabric makes me feel warm, while touching metal make me cold even if these surfaces are the opposite temperature)
Chromatactilia, touch illicits colour
Optalgia, pain illicits colour

Chromopsia

Reminds of the Village.

ive always thought of the days of the weeks as colours, especially when i was younger though...not kinda consciuosly, just it was there under the surface
sunday- greyish blue
monday - reddish pink
tuesday - turquoise
wednesday - turquoise too [but sometimes yellow, come to think of it]
thursday - a dark coral kind of orange
friday - midway between orange and yellow ish
saturday - olive green, almost black

tuesday has been the strongest. i always think of tuesday when i see the right shade of turquiose

i sound sort of weird in hindsight there...
Mine were like this:
Monday - brown or a warm red / like an even number / steady / dry
Tuesday - yellow / mostly like an even number / middle-of-the-road /mostly dry
Wednesday - bright red / like an uneven number / edgy / strong / wet
Thursday - ochre / like an even number / very mellow / warm / dry
Friday - green / like an uneven number / egdy and a bit weightless / wet
Saturday & Sunday - sorry, I got nothing.

It's pretty sad, because this was a lot stronger when I was a kid, it's almost disappeared today.