The Alphabet Game

[teri tait]

I think y is a necessary evil. I mean there are times when y makes all the difference in a word. I can't think of any examples but still.

[hippietrekx]

Just so we're clear, I agree on that. You needs Y. Yell needs Y. Y has a sound of it's own, but gosh darn it, if it's going to claim vowel hood sometimes, it can claim it all the time!

[teri tait]

Keeping y and upgrading status to full time vowel. Dropping the worthless letter K. Got it. Any other changes we should implement in the new streamlined and efficient alphabet?

[pmcolt]

Let's change the alphabet into something more ordered, while we're at it. What's up with scattering the vowels throughout the alphabet? And the letters aren't ordered by shape, number of strokes, or pronunciation.

[Мастер]

Dropping the worthless letter K.

My dear Teri, you are on very dangerous territory right now. . .

[teri tait]

Dropping the worthless letter K.

My dear Teri, you are on very dangerous territory right now. . .

Now that I've had time and the proper motivation to think it through. . . We MUST keep K!!! It is the very lynchpin of our alphabet!! Without it civilization would surely collapse!!

[hippietrekx]

Oh, fine, but Y gets promoted, right? I think we should arrange the alphabet in the order that the letters are most frequently used (Vowels first, then Consonants)

[pmcolt]

Pat Sajak, on Wheel of Fortune, would thank you every time some nut chooses q, z, x, and w for his three consonants and one vowel during the bonus round.

[Capt. Moosedoom]

quite a story you guys can tell but I still think Q is not the most vicious number.

[hippietrekx]

Really moose, where would MY NAME be without Q?!

[teri tait]

Sadly, Q is the weakest link since it does absolutely nothing without U. What a slacker letter!!!

[pmcolt]

That may be so, but they go so well together. qu. qu. qu. Q is queenly. Unique. Picturesque, even. Without Q, we would truly be in a quagmire.

(
And I'm reminded of a guy I knew in first year Java programming.

Code: Select all

int i,j,k;
StringBuffer sb;
char[] temp;
Queue fuh;


"What's that last variable declaration? I don't see it used anywhere."
"Oh, it creates a queue called 'fuh'."
"I know that. Can you tell me why?"
"Fuh queue."
)

If we're still looking to get rid of a letter, I say we get rid of W. I mean, what is that? Like U is so special that we need a double-U? It's not even a double-U, anyway; it's a double-V! The French got it right, so why don't we call it double-v, too? Not that we need a double-v any more than we need a double-u.

And what's its role, anyway? We once got into a ten-minute debate in that same first-year Java class just trying to figure out whether the vowels were "a, e, i, o, u, sometimes y" (what most folks seemed to think was right), or "a, e, i, o, u, sometimes w, y" (what I was taught, and what the instructor remembered, as well.) That letter W is nothing but a troublemaker.

[teri tait]

Usurping the letter W, are you? Without W where would a we be? Seriously, "we" would cease to exist as a word nad no other letter makes a sound quite like the letter W. . .

[Capt. Moosedoom]

Very true, if we didn't have we, we could only exist as they and not we. we would need another word to use for we or we would be stuck with saying us. Such as in the sentance "us went to the store.". And seeing as us could'nt use went, us would have to use something like "did go" because us can't use was as in "was going." So the original phrase "we went to the store", in new english not haveing the "W" in question must be "Us did go to the store." It's all really contraversial if you ask me.

[teri tait]

What she said

[Мастер]

Xenophobes may feel that way, but neither German nor Russian have a "w" sound.

[teri tait]

Yes, but they have all those extra letters to make up for it. Like the mysterious and intriguing umlaut, for example.

[hippietrekx]

Zikes! W is my favorite letter! What are we taking out next, M?

[Dragon Star]

Apples and Oranges, of course. :)

[Мастер]

But why?

[pmcolt]

"Cantaloupe and Tangerines" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

[St. Jimmy]

Do have any idea how much it suck to have a stomach ulcer? :(

[Мастер]

Exactly how much does it suck?

[St. Jimmy]

Forty two times more than having the flu.

[Lance]

Gosh, is that what's wrong with you?