2794: Alphabet Notes
Alphabet Notes |
Title text: Listen, you're very cute, but if you rearrange the alphabet to put U and I together it will RUIN the spacing! |
Explanation
This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Needs more on how to avoid the haunted letters! Do NOT remove this notice too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
This comic is Randall's "design notes" for the English alphabet. The comic lists the A-to-Z alphabet, in black block letters, from left to right. Forming these supposed design notes are many red annotations:
At the top, Randall lists the vowels and appreciates how they are spaced. At the end of the list, he uses a question mark to indicate the ambiguous nature of Y, which can function both as a vowel and a consonant depending on the context.
Letter | Randall's note | Explanation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
A | "Strong start!" | A is described favorably as the start. | ||
B | "Decent consonants but no real heavy hitters here in the first third ("D" is solid, at least)" | Randall considers the five early consonants B, C, D, F, and G to be acceptable but nothing special, with the exception of D which he considers solid. It's not clear whether he specifically is referring to their appearance or what sound they represent. In English phonology, D is the voiced alveolar plosive. | ||
C | ||||
D | ||||
F | ||||
G | ||||
H | "Hi!" | The word "Hi" appears uninterrupted when the letters of the English alphabet are listed A-to-Z. | ||
I | ||||
"The dotted letters are friends!" | Randall notes and appreciates the shared tittle (dot) in the lowercase letters i and j, calling them "friends". The separate dots and main strokes could also be interpreted as the heads and torsos of two reductionist character drawings. The two letters are the respective mathematical and electrical-engineering notations of the square root of -1, and so may be considered both professionally and personally in a close relationship, as well as neighbours. In the Netherlands, a digraph, or two letters representing one sound (such as "CH" and "SH" in English) is formed from I and J, creating IJ; it is considered distinct from either I or J. It should be noted that J appeared sometime around the Middle Ages as a variant of I, explaining why they look similar and are located together in the alphabet. | |||
J | ||||
"Jk (lol)" | Like "Hi", the letters J and K are next to each other in the English alphabet. "Jk" is an initialism for "just kidding", similar to "LOL" for "laugh out loud". | |||
K | ||||
L to P | "Part that's fun to sing" | In the standard "alphabet song" in the US (sung to the tune of the nursery rhyme "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"), most letters occur upon the beat of an easy and sedate tempo. However, to make it both scan and rhyme, the letters L to P are run through at double the tempo. This provides a welcome departure from the rhythm that has been slow and uniform up to that point, and the rapidity of the letters almost makes them feel like a strange word ("elemenopee") rather than a sequence of alphabetic letters. The letter sounds also require the involvement of several different parts of the mouth, including a rapid tongue movement, which may feel more fun to do than the preceding parts. | ||
M | "Weird how the line between "M" and "N" is the halfway mark.
They're similar, but "MN" only shows up in fancy words like "mnemonic", "column", "amnesty", and "hymn". Significance??" |
Randall finds it weird that the dividing line between the two halves of the alphabet would go between M and N. Indeed, it is a bit odd that the two letters, which look similar and represent similar sounds, are placed in such a way that they would be split apart when the alphabet is written out on two lines. He also lists several words that contain MN in sequence and speculates on the significance of this rare digram seemingly only being used for "fancy" words. | ||
N | ||||
"No" | Like "Hi", the word "No" appears uninterrupted in the English alphabet. | |||
O | ||||
P | ||||
Q | "Why is this here?" | Randall considers Q strange, likely because the sound it denotes in English could be replaced with the sequence "KW". The modern English alphabet evolved from the Phoenician alphabet, where the letter Q represented a voiceless uvular plosive, a sound similar to /k/ but with the tongue pushed back. Even though the Greeks, Latins, French, and eventually the English didn't have this sound in their languages, they kept the letter Q because Arabic numerals hadn't been adopted yet and Q was employed to represent the number 90. Other letters can be replaced by a similar combination of letters, but they aren't mentioned by Randall. For example, C can be replaced with K or S, and X can be spelt as "KS". | ||
R | "Strong cluster!" | Randall considers RST a strong cluster of consonants, though again it is unclear whether he refers to their visual design or in the sounds they represent. The use of an RST code is a traditional way of describing the reception quality of radio communications. Also, RST are part of the widely recognized five most common consonants in the English language, RSTLN. Three out of the five are listed together in the alphabet. | ||
S | ||||
T | ||||
"...Listen.
Maybe we should've stopped at "T"." |
The comment that the alphabet may have been better if it had stopped at T is potential a reference to the fact that the original Phoenician script, which is the ancestor of many modern scripts including English, had as its last letter Taw, which the modern letter T is derived from. It is still the last letter of the modern Hebrew alphabet, although the Greek alphabet added several letters after it, some of which persist into modern English. Randall seems to believe that the Phoenician script was fine as-is and that the letters U-Z are unnecessary or "haunted". | |||
U | "Weirdest of the main 5 vowels by far" | Randall is not a fan of the letter U and thinks it is the weirdest of the five vowels. | ||
V to Z | "Haunted letters (keep out!!)" | The letters V, W, X, Y, and Z are "haunted". | ||
V | "??" | Randall seems to be confused about VW. Possible confusion stems from the fact that that W is called "double U" rather than "double V". Both W and U are derived from V, which might explain a lot. He may also be confused as to why a make of car is appearing in the alphabet. | ||
W | ||||
X | "Not sure this is even a letter. Did you include a number by mistake?" | Randall questions whether X is even a letter. As Randall is a physicist, it is likely he is referring to how the letter is likely encountered more often as a variable representing a number in mathematics and algebra than as a letter for scientists. Alternatively, he could be referring to the Roman numeral X, though he doesn't apparently have this kind of issue with I, V, L, D or M. | ||
Y | "?" | At the end of the vowel list at the top, Randall uses a question mark to indicate the ambiguous nature of Y, which can function both as a vowel and a consonant depending on the context. Its name also sounds like "why", which is a very common question. | ||
Z |
The title text jokes about the pick-up line "If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put U and I together.", where the letters U and I are pronounced like the pronouns "you" and "I". It is such a corny act of flirtation that any recipient of it could easily have a rejection (or a flirty acceptance if they so wish) ready to respond with in an appropriate vein. As well as reflecting the diagram's noted preference for well-spaced vowels, it might be presumed that anyone (unironically) using the "U and I" line might be left dumbfounded at the rather technical nature of the riposte. This pickup line was also the subject of 1069: Alphabet. The word "ruin" also contains the two letters next to each other, which rather subverts the idea that putting them together results in something cute. Alternatively, the distance ("spacing") between the flirters would change ("be ruined") if they got together, subverting the meaning of "ruin" in a more positive way. Transcript
DiscussionNo, we must rid ourselves of the redundant C. Also we need to bring back Ð and Þ. SDSpivey (talk) 19:20, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
daMNation, randoMNess, chiMNey, gyMNastics, autuMN are not fancy words 172.70.250.204 19:43, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
You can't have rUIn without U and I together! Or UI! GetPunnedOn (talk) 22:35, 26 June 2023 (UTC) (Reply to above text) We need to bring back way more letters: https://youtu.be/wJxKyh9e5_A --172.71.246.84 20:33, 26 June 2023 (UTC) I would be useful to include the letter frequency table from Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency but we don't appear to have the "bartable" template from wikipedia to display bar charts. It would explain a lot about the haunted letters in particular to have it. The circled JK is clearly referencing the text-language abbreviation for "just kidding", and the bracketed VW... I'm not sure but, it might have to do with Volkswagen, or the spikiness of the letters, or "why isn't W called double-V or at least next to the U". 172.70.174.166 21:18, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Added the Twinkle Twinkle justification into the existing explanation. But I might be talking out of my hat, as I'm British and only really know the US treatment from imported media. (Sesame Street? No, I can only bring to mind their counting 1-12 song. And "Conjunction Junction".) The UK's "alphabet" recital form, at least when I was that young, is far less musical. And tends to rhyme "Z" with "Drop dead!", naturally. ;) 172.70.90.183 22:06, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Pretty sure he isn't questioning the position of Q as much as its inclusion. If we wanted to reform English spelling, we could get rid of Q pretty kwiklee.172.71.26.207 23:29, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
I can't be the only one who thinks there's a dirty joke in the line '"D" is solid, at least' 172.71.150.140 00:18, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
PxP: I must ask, does this has anything to do with Alphabet Lore by Mike Salcedo? I feel it might be, with Q being weird and all. 12:16, 27 June 2023 (EST) To quote my latest edit-comment: "Why number-points, anyway? Just *s would make more sense than #s, as there's no need to establish an order in most cases, especially for multi-glyph annotations" (...like the wide spread of vowels(+Y), especially). I see no need for ordinal bullet-points, but (which would have helped my prior edit, that I'd forgotten to Preview first, thus had broken/restarted the numbering) it is a prime candidate for the more traditional wikitable layout. Columns of "Letter(s), Red Comment, Possible Reason(s)" would probably suffice. 172.70.162.171 16:43, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
The strong RST cluster could also reference the keys on the colemak keyboard layout where the three stronger fingers (ring, middle, left) of the left-hand sit on those keys
None of the latest comics have been added to this site around when they were posted recently. —172.70.174.166 14:12, 28 June 2023 (UTC) What's funny - but I find incredibly common - is that I agree with Randall on all of these points, LOL! I can just see what he means. NiceGuy1 (talk) 06:40, 1 July 2023 (UTC) Why're we using "number-bullets" in this page's markup/composition? Seems a strange choice... 172.71.178.139 16:56, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
Are you sure he doesn't mean here as in why Q is between P and R instead of, say, next to U? 108.162.242.52 01:36, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
Can someone add the letters E and L to the chart? IJustWantToEditStuff (talk) 16:33, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
I’m surprised there is no discussion of W as a vowel, for example the word cwm. John (talk) 11:28, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
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