phonetic metachars

#!/usr/bin/perl

# list borrowed from http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/06/ascii-pronunciation-rules-for-programmers.html
my %chars = (
    '!' => [qw(bang pling excl not shriek factorial exclam smash cuss boing yell wow hey wham eureka spark-spot soldier)],
    '"' => [qw(literal double-glitch dieresis dirk rabbit_ears double_prime)],
    '#' => [qw(hash crunch hex mesh grid pound sharp grid crosshatch octothorpe flash square tictactoe scratchmark thud thump splat pigpen)],
    '$' => [qw(dollar currency buck cash string ding cache big_money)],
    '%' => [qw(percent mod grapes 007)],
    '&' => [qw(amp amper and address reference andpersand bitand background pretzel)],
    "'" => [qw(apostrophe single_quote quote prime glitch tick irk pop spark acute_accent)],
    '(' => [qw(lparen open wax parenthisey left_ear)],
    ')' => [qw(rparen close wane unparenthisey right_ear)],
    '[' => [qw(bracket square uturn)],
    ']' => [qw(unbracket unsquare uturn_back)],
    '{' => [qw(lsquiggley curley leftit embrace)],
    '}' => [qw(rsquiggley uncurley rytit bracelet)],
    '<' => [qw(read suck gozouta from crunch tic)],
    '>' => [qw(write blow gozinta into zap tac)],
    '*' => [qw(asterisk star splat wildcard gear dingle mult spider aster times twinkle glob)],
    '+' => [qw(plus add cross intersection)],
    ',' => [qw(comma cedilla tail)],
    '-' => [qw(dash hyphen minus worm option dak bithorpe)],
    '.' => [qw(period dot point decimal radix fullstop spot)],
    '/' => [qw(slash stroke slant diagonal solidus over slak virgule slat)],
    '\\' => [qw(backslash hack whack escape backslant backwhack bash rvirgule backslat)],
    ':' => [qw(colon dots twospot)],
    ';' => [qw(semicolon semiweenie hybrid pitthwong)],
    '=' => [qw(equals gets takes quadrathorpe halfmesh)],
    '?' => [qw(question query quiz whatmark what wildchar huh hook buttonhook hunchback)],
    '@' => [qw(at strudel each vortex whorl whirlpool cyclone snail ape cat rose cabbage commercial)],
    '^' => [qw(circumflex caret hat control uparrow xor chevron shark sharkfin fang exponent pointer)],
    '_' => [qw(underline underscore underbar skid flatworm)],
    '`' => [qw(grave backquote backprime backspark unapostrophe birk blugle backtick backglitch push quasiquote)],
    '|' => [qw(bar or vbar pipe vertical thru spike)],
    '~' => [qw(tilde squiggle twiddle not approx wiggle swungdash enyay)],
);

while (<>) {
    my $english = join('', (map {explain($_)} split('', $_)));
    $english =~ s/ +/ /g;
    $english =~ s/^ //g;
    print $english;
}

sub explain {
    my $c = shift;
    if ($ra = $chars{$c}) {
        return " " . $ra->[int(rand(scalar @$ra))] . " ";
    }
    return $c;
}