New Letters
March 3rd, 2007
Hm. The Straight Dope can be pretty interesting sometimes. I had no idea that the letter “W” was only 400 years old, or that “I” and “J” as well as “U” and “V” were not distinct letters until only around 300 years ago. I mean, I’ve seen the chiseled word “MVSEVM” (“moov-zeevum,” as Steve Martin pronounced it), but thought that was just stylistic. And I’ve heard a lot about the letter “J” being an “I” in old names, but thought that it went much farther back than just three centuries.
I still love Dan Aykroyd’s “Metric Alphabet,” or “Decabet.” For people who thought “LMNO” was just one letter anyway. (“Please LMNOpen the door!”)
It’s interesting how the alphabet evolved. Same kind of thing with the letter s, it didn’t exist a couple of hundred years ago – f was used. Obvioufly fome fort of mifchief!
Moving the thoughts onto numbers – how did we ever get on without “0”! Negative numbers can seem abstract to many but imagine them being utterly alien to someone a couple of centuries ago!
Dan Akroyd probably never worked on Unix. One of the MOTDs, (attributed to Mark Twain, though I doubt it’s from him), is a much more hilarious alphabet simplicifation than he’s promoting:
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter “c” would be dropped
to be replased either by “k” or “s”, and likewise “x” would no longer
be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which “c” would be retained
would be the “ch” formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2
might reform “w” spelling, so that “which” and “one” would take the
same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish “y” replasing it with
“i” and Iear 4 might fiks the “g/j” anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear
with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12
or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi
ridandant letez “c”, “y” and “x” — bai now jast a memori in the maindz
ov ould doderez — tu riplais “ch”, “sh”, and “th” rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud
hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.