Whist wondering why the HB pedant alert sound comes out "ping ping ping" on my computer rather than the "whoop whoop whoop" it's supposed to be, I suspect a Linux Flash plugin error, I was wondering if it might be possible to standardise animal sounds.
For example, dogs in English go woof woof, while
in Korean it's mung mung and in Japanese it's one one (an obvious early adoption of binary, I blame the Akihabara influence)
So, I set about, with a dictionary in hand, the task of asking animals how they actually spell what it is they are saying. It was less than successful.
So I am thinking now of frequency analysis and then getting the correct Latin alphabet output, which can then be compiled into a handy dictionary, and possibly a new font set, to make it easier to use internationally, with for example two large dog paw prints for woof woof, or two large prints with the second one in superscript to indicate woof woof ? Might even go for the True Character just to be annoying.
As a spin off, the frequency analysis might be useful for other sounds such as the pedant alert, or aarrgh, noises people seem to think are valid responses in the house of commons or stuff like that.