Wat the ell do we ave it for, anyway?-- smizzou, Jun 28 2001 aven't we been ere before? http://www.halfbake...e_20vowel_20English [angel, Jun 28 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004] Lipogram - There's no Letter-E in Ernest Vincent Wright's novel "Gadsby" http://www.encyclop.../1O87-lipogram.html(The film "The Great Gadsby" has a couple in the title) [Dub, Mar 02 2009] Gadsby http://www.wordwork.org/gadsby/No E. (No L, No L... , Christmas based pun) [Dub, Aug 04 2009] encefort you must ear wit your ear, and wit your wit compreend umor, you must bate in a bat with a bat, and wonder were your at's at wen the wens on your ead were were you tougt tey would be.-- Dog Ed, Jun 28 2001 Uhhhhhh, the "h" has huge worth. How shall they have the phrases that happen here without "h"? Therefor shut that hole, Matthew Smith.-- globaltourniquet, Jun 28 2001 If any letter should be dropped, it's surely K.-- snarfyguy, Jun 28 2001 But then you wouldn't be able to spell kelvin and um... erm...-- RobertKidney, Jun 28 2001 Nothing personal, Mr. Kidney.-- snarfyguy, Jun 28 2001 I've never seen 'k' or 's' say the sound made by the c's in "church".-- globaltourniquet, Jun 29 2001 Ello, I'm Susen Unter and I raise orses on my orse farm....I also give orseback riding lessons and break/train/breed orses. The orsefarm is also my ome were (as opposed to "where") I live.
Tis isn't going to work well... "h" is just too important.-- Susen, Jun 29 2001 "Q" is the most likely to get the boot. And rewriting words is as easy as "Kuantas" or "Kueen" or "Kwick".
Plus, these "new" words are funny to look at.-- mrkillboy, Jun 29 2001 If you get rid of h, you need to reintroduce thorn and edh (sorry, þorn and eð), as well as č (which MSIE won't display) and š.-- bookworm, Jun 29 2001 Wasn't "J" the last character introduced into the English alphabet? Hmm... What of the impact of it's removal today?-- The Military, Jun 29 2001 [The Mil]: I don't think [utta] would be too happy.-- angel, Jun 29 2001 If we abolish "H", do we abolish the irritating blond git from Steps automatically? That gets a croissant from me. I'll happily volunteer to put the grinning monkey down with a lethal injection.-- Guy Fox, Jun 29 2001 why don't we abolish all letters from the language and just use periods and exclamation marks to denote where the sentences are? then we could just
.
. . !-- mihali, Jun 29 2001 >"c" should be dropped, because it makes sounds already made by "k" and "s".
>I've never seen 'k' or 's' say the sound made by the c's in "church".
In Indonesian, they've repurposed the letter "c" to BE the "ch" sound. It's the most logical language design decision I know. Of course, you have the luxury of doing stuff like that when you "invent" a language from scratch.-- TickleMeElmo, Jun 29 2001 Professor 'enry 'iggins?
....I could 'ave danced all nite......-- Susen, Jun 29 2001 Apparently this is alphabet "Survivor". I vote to kick off y. She's useless: Apparentlee. U've got mail. Doggee stile. Clearlee a redundant letter.-- MuddDog, Jun 29 2001 PeterSealy, little you know. Ya cain't say "ain't" without a consarned "T"!-- The Military, Jun 29 2001 Gah ih!-- The Military, Jun 30 2001 Cartoon Swede's would be reduced to declaring... No, wait... That won't work. And "yutta" sounds sort of disturbing.-- The Military, Jun 30 2001 Oh, cripes!-- The Military, Jun 30 2001 When in doubt, refer to the master...
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A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain
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.
------------------------------------------ supercat, Jun 30 2001 It's just like Esperanto. Only sensible!-- The Military, Jul 03 2001 I like to drop E's quite a bit.-- benfrost, Jul 03 2001 why does that not surprise me.I'd like a P please Bob.-- lewisgirl, Jul 03 2001 I once had an old Commodore PET computer with an X key that never worked. Nobody understood what eks-rays were, and the spell-checker always changed seks to sects, but I could usually eksplain why my tekst looked funny.-- Canuck, Jul 03 2001 Lewisgirl, second door down the hallway on the right.-- StarChaser, Jul 06 2001 Loads of languages do pretty well without any vowels. Although some have taken to cheating and using diacritics, the wusses. (I'm thinking Arabic, some other semitic tongues, and does Hebrew also?)-- pottedstu, Oct 11 2001 Surely you mean 'Abolis "H"'?-- CoolerKing, Oct 11 2001 It really annoys me when I hear the yanks say 'Erbs' instead of 'Herbs'
I can put up with some of their other strange pronunciations, but this one gets me every time.
GRRRRR-- Lula, Jun 15 2003 Doesn't it seem strange to you that this word is borrowed from the French who *did not* pronounce the (h) sound?-- Tiger Lily, Jun 15 2003 We'd all sound like cockneys. And that's a fate worse than death by Munchkin.
"'ello governer, 'ows about a nice walk in te park den ay? Welcome to te 'alfbakery"-- Freelancer, Jun 16 2003 [ravenswood] and [UnaBubba] - re: US "Artic" and "Antartic". When you come right down to it, we say something more like "Ardic" and "Anardic." Of course, that contrasts with your "Ahctic" and "Antahtic."
Surely someone somewhere speaks English with all the letters, H included.-- ConsultingDetective, Jan 30 2004 How about me? Also, [smizzou], you used "H" in "abolish". And if your name is Matthew Smith, It'd come out "Mattew Smit" ha-ha-ha...-- spacecadet, Feb 11 2004 if we used ð, þ, c for CH, and x for SH (like the chinese do) it would work. personally, Id like to bring back ð and þ back into english... check out my argument for it. search Eth and Thorn-- Seolyk, Sep 21 2005 Do away with 'J' and 'K' and 'Q' while your at it.-- Dub, Sep 21 2005 [smizzou] calls for the removal of a letter, yet uses it in title and tagline settings. Surely in view of same, idea as presented isn't even self consistent.-- zen_tom, Sep 21 2005 I've never had any use for the letter "a." Let's get rid of that one, too.-- Machiavelli, Sep 21 2005 In fact, why not just do away with all letters, and be done with it? Ones and zeros are all we need. C'mon everyone, ASCII isn't that hard once you get the hang of it.-- Trickytracks, Sep 21 2005 Any proper language would get civized, and use the 22 consonants and 14 vowels already in existence.-- ye_river_xiv, May 12 2007 [smizzou] You can't get rid of the letter 'H', where would all the helicopters land?
[Dub] You can't get rid of 'J' and 'K' what on earth would we call the guy from Jamiroquai? And without 'Q', Bond wouldn't have any gadgets.-- marklar, May 13 2007 elp! I'm not te person I once was!-- jhomrighaus, May 13 2007 "...wen the wens on your ead..." "wen _te_ wens on your ead", Surley?-- nick_n_uit, May 13 2007 Souldn't tis be {Abolis ""}?-- Spacecoyote, Mar 02 2009 While we're at it, I think Z should be reclassified as a "dwarf letter". Then we'd have a nice even 25 letters in our alphabet.-- phundug, Mar 02 2009 //While we're at it, I think Z should be reclassified as a "dwarf letter".// My brother ack would not be happy about that.-- Spacecoyote, Mar 02 2009 Þere are actually far too few letters in þe alphabet we generally use. We should take an œcumenical approach to our writing raðer ðan scyðing þrouз our tongue. We have an encyclopædic gamut of letters which we underuse. Þorn, eð, yoз, æsc and œ are all wonderful letters which simplify English spelling.I've done it again! The missing letters should look like þrees.
Having said that, "h" is sort of like an accent in English much of the time and is used to distinguish between sounds. If yogh, þorn and eð were used, and Anglo-Saxon spelling conventions used "sc" for "sh" and "c" for "ch". Anglo-Saxon helms of fuþorc are therefore known for the lack of wear on their hægl (H) stud.-- nineteenthly, Mar 02 2009 Neu, wi scud ius Ænglosaxon spelling. Þe cwic braun fox giamps eufe þe leisi dog.-- nineteenthly, Mar 02 2009 Ten I wouldn't know wo I was, jomrigaus????-- jhomrighaus, Mar 02 2009 Chat Hat Shat Char Hoot etc.
The list of words for which this would spell doom is very long.-- WcW, Aug 05 2009 //Wat the ell do we ave it for, anyway?// To distinguish people of quality from mere oiks. In Hampshire, Hereford and Herts, Hurricanes hardly ever happen.-- DrBob, Aug 05 2009 Tis idea is sit.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 05 2009 'a'a!-- pertinax, Aug 05 2009 //Tis idea is sit//
ilarious! But on an serious note, everybody knows that the red-headed step-children of the alphabet are "e" and "s". Thou shalt not suffer an e or s to live...-- Speed Razor, Aug 05 2009 You'll ruin the alfbakery. Stop it.-- Bad Jim, Aug 05 2009 random, halfbakery