[bzbarsky]

> and in fact no english word that's 'b' followed by vowel(s) and nothing else

  "beau", "bi", "be", "bee", "bao", "boa"

came to mind off the top of my head and are all in the dictionary; there are probably others. Of these, "be", "bee", and "boa" should be pretty non-controversial both in terms of "word" and "English".

For the original issue, "ba" pronounced with the actual letter names does in fact sound like "b-ay". Whether that's what Gregg shorthand does, I can't tell.