ZYX

Long ago, after listening to a fellow grad student discuss this aspiration, I decided that like him, I should also learn to fluently recite the alphabet backwards. At the time, I gave it enough of a try to realize it was harder than I thought it would be, and then I forgot about it for the next 2.5 decades.

Gentle readers, I'm pleased to announce that I finally realized this goal this past Sunday on a roadtrip from Ocracoke to Durham. Am I a better person for it? Oh, probably.

Because I think everyone should want to be able to recite the alphabet backwards, I share my strategy below.

The effort began a week ago while I was out for a jog. I don't jog often, but when I do, I tend to think my most articulate, most brilliant thoughts, interspersed with long stretches of counting to 100 over and over and over again. I usually count in triple meter, so I can keep track of which set of 100 I'm on by noticing where the accents fall and paying attention to whether those numbers are divisible by three or have a remainder of 1 or 2. I can't explain why I do this, I just do.

I am consequently very experienced at counting while running. 

For backwards alphabetting, my grad school compatriot had recommended starting by reciting a number alongside each letter: 1A, 2B, 3C, 4D, 5E, etc. So I practiced that for a while. Then I switched things up and practiced A1, B2, C3, D4, E5, etc.

I discovered some handy mnemonics en route. Eight eight-ch (8H). Twen-tee tee. V is 22--because there are two branches in the letter. W is 23--because if you tip a W on its side, it looks like the numeral 3. X is 24--because it depicts four quadrants. G is 7 and Q is 17--because the European way of writing the number 7 has a horizontal crossbar across the diagonal line, and the serif on a capital G and the tail of the Q are kind of like crossbars.

Even though I count in threes when I jog, in the US we learn the alphabet in quadruple meter, so I counted letters in groups of four. I memorized the letters divisible by 4, so I had landmarks with which to recognize if I had gotten off track: D4, H8, L12, P16, T20, X24. 

Then I tried putting the accents on the downbeats of groups of four letters, and discovered something I had never noticed before about vowels: A1, E5, I9, M13, Q17, U21, Y25. You might be thinking "yo, M and Q are not vowels"--but I'll note that the only vowel missing from the list, O (15), is the average of M (13) and Q (17). Nifty.

Four days later, while roadtripping on Sunday, I worked on counting down from 26Z to 1A. Other than repeatedly getting the order VU wrong and occasionally forgetting to include G, this didn't take long to learn. And then it was time to drop the numbers.

I blame the Alphabet Song for making it so hard to recite the alphabet backwards: we learn the letters in the direction A to Z, reinforce that order with a melody, and there's no going back[wards]. So to combat Alphabet-Song indoctrination, the next step was obviously to set the backwards alphabet to music (click image to enlarge):

Naturally, I sang this a few dozen times, and the ending made me laugh a every time, which made the miles pass more quickly.

Then I wondered whether the tempo of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik might be too quick for those newer to backwards-alphabetting; perhaps a slower melody would be more helpful. It needed to be something familiar, a tune most USAmericans would know... and suddenly I thought of my friend Leslie, who found herself in Salzburg this summer on a bus full of Sound of Music fans who nostalgically burst into song. The choice of melody was immediately clear (click to enlarge):

I regret that I didn't start working on this when E was little, so he could have grown up singing ZYX, but maybe I'll cross paths with a bunch of musically thirsty toddlers someday.

Those of you who know more about rock music and Googling than I do probably know They Might Be Giants has already addressed this crucial issue. (Still, I think Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and Edelweiss offer less mournful melodies.)