“I” is pronounced “eye”, because it’s a word. “i” doesn’t have a standalone pronunciation that I’m aware of.
Similarly, I don’t consider “e”, “o”, or “u” to be pronounceable. “a” is because it, again, is a defined word. (The pronunciation is “uh”.)
A, E, I, O, and U, are all pronounced as their long vowel sounds.
No, their names are pronounced the same as their long vowel sounds. Only by Observing context can One know how “O” is pronounced - and standing alone it has no such context.
Yes that is true, however letting I be spelled “I” makes a lot more sense than letting W be spelled “W”. “Eye” is a sound represented by the letter I and so it makes some sense to just spell it “I”. But I’m not arguing for any particular spelling for any letter except that it should make some kind of phonetic sense, I just think it is ridiculous to suggest that the names of the letters aren’t words at all. Even if they were never written, they would still be words, they get used every time we say the name of a letter.
I find it interesting that for a lot of letters my brain rejects the idea that they have a spelling. For example my brain tells me that the name of the letter ‘b’ is definitely neither “bee” or “be”, because I know what those words mean and they don’t mean the letter. “b”, on the other hand, doesn’t even have a vowel.
About the only letter that my brain considers to have a spelling is Z, which in england has the spelling zed. My brain doesn’t like zee as spelling - that’s more an onomatopoeia. It also scoffs at the proposed spellings of H being words.
And what does your brain make of “w”?
I don’t mean to scoff; I’m genuinely curious.
I totally agree w @Richard_Pearse’s POV. Logically. But trying to introspect on the semi-chaos that is English as practiced between my ears I find your ideas compelling and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I actually tried to write out double-?, and I got as far as double (which is a word) before slamming into U, which isn’t spelled u, you, or ewwww.
I found a half-spellable word kind of troubling, honestly.
For what it is worth, I too am on team Richard_Pearse.
And it seems we don’t all read the same kinds of books, because I’ve seen the names of letters spelled out many times… and to address something from up-thread, “O” I’ve always seen written out as “oh”.
And eastern Canadian (Ont and Que) and I don’t know anyone who says “haitch” instead of “aitch”. And we say “zed” out here as well.
That may be a problem, but it’s not a problem that would stop “C” being the spelling of the letter C. English spelling is notoriously a poor guide to pronunciation.