You are all familiar with the concept of the palindrome: words and phrases that are spelled the same when reversed: Madam, I’m Adam; A man, a plan, a canal, Panama; etc. In this month’s game, we stick with the English language, but trade in traditional orthography for the IPA, introducing the concept of IPAlindromes, whether phonemic or phonetic (and, occasionally, requiring a bit of a stretch, allowing for idealization of dialects, idiosyncratic variations, etc., just as the traditional palindrome ignored word spacing, punctuation marks, capitalization, etc.).
For example, right rear tire /rajtrirtajr/ may be considered a phonemic IPAlindrome (assuming that we agree to treat the diphthong as a single unit), but not a phonetic one, as only the second /t/ would be aspirated (and the first would likely be glottalized).
A dose of soda, on the other hand, could be a phonetic IPAlindrome, but not a phonemic one because of the asymmetrical consonant-
Determine which of the following phrases may be phonetic IPAlindromes, phonemic IPAlindromes, both, or neither:
Complete the puzzle and send your solutions to the editors of SpecGram by July 15th, 2012 and you could win a SpecGram magnet of your choice. The correct solution and winners, if any, will be announced in the upcoming August issue.