# Simplify The Alphabet? Lets Get Rid of: X, Y, Z? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 17, 2003, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061 "2003-09-17T00:49:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/41 "2003-09-18T21:16:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > \*\*Lemur: We need a “y” as in the first consonent sound in “yes”. \*\* The problem being, it is not a consonant sound. See my prior post. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/42 "2003-09-18T21:37:23Z")
The problem with getting rid of “x” is that then there would be a lot more words ending in “s” that aren’t plural, would be a source of confusion. Moreover, considering the present state of “literacy”, this would quickly be followed by even more misuse of apostrophe’s. Instead of “box”, we’d have “bok’s”. And how would you pluralize it? “bokses”? I suppose that the statement that we don’t need all of our letters is litterally true. We can replace “q” with “kw”, “y” with “ll”, “c” with “s” or “k”, “f” with “ph”, “u” with “ew”, etc. Strictly speaking we really only need two letters. Anything more than that is to make words easier to parse. Moreover, they allow homophones to be spelled differently (although, again, there seems to be widespread ignorance of this fact). However, don’t worry about mathematicians. We have no problem using Greek letters; we’d still use x,y, and z even if no one else did. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/43 "2003-09-18T22:02:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kaylasdad99 \* > \*\*The problem being, it is not a consonant sound. See my prior post. \*\* So, you are saying that the word “yes” has two syllables. I don’t agree. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/44 "2003-09-19T05:09:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > \*\*So, you are saying that the word “yes” has two syllables. I don’t agree. \*\* Huh. I’d never had that argument pointed out to me before. I’ll have to give it some thought. But in the meantime, as any slow-talkin’ Texas cowpoke could tell you, “Eeeey-up. That’s the way it looks.” Do you consider the word “I” to have two syllables? (ahh-ee) What about other diphthongs, such as “ou”? (ahh-oo) Or “A”? (ehh-ee) I hear standard pronunciations of “y” and “w” as diphthongs, with the phonemes in reverse order, if you will. I don’t see why that should make them consonants. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/45 "2003-09-19T05:23:01Z")
Well, a diphthong is one syllable, but I never thought of “yes” as a diphthong. Maybe it’s just regional, but I don’t say “ee-es”. There is no “ee” sound at the begining of “yes” when I say it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/46 "2003-09-19T05:25:22Z")
Or, looking at it this way, how would one spell “yes” using Lemur’s New Alphabet? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/47 "2003-09-19T06:17:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > \*\*Well, a diphthong is one syllable, but I never thought of “yes” as a diphthong. Maybe it’s just regional, but I don’t say “ee-es”. There is no “ee” sound at the begining of “yes” when I say it. \*\* The fact is, you are using both phonemes, no matter how quickly you get the first one out of the way, whether it is a standard diphthong or what I’m insisting is a retrograde diphthong (a term I just made up, by the way), so if you count only one syllable in a diphthong, I guess you can say “yes” has only one syllable. And I’ll agree with you. So, no I’m not saying that “yes” has two syllables. But it does have two phonemes. > [@](#): > > **Or, looking at it this way, how would one spell “yes” using Lemur’s New Alphabet?** As I said in my first post, I’m good with keeping the twenty-six letters I learned in that “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” song when I was a kid. Consequently, I haven’t bothered yet to examine **Lemur’s** New Alphabet. But I’m having such a good time in this thread that I believe I will, and get back to you. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/48 "2003-09-19T06:43:40Z")
Well, now that I’ve examined **Lemur’s** New Alphabet, I notice that he doesn’t seem to have done much vowel reform. He just says to “add hats to the vowels” as appropriate. It strikes me as a bit of a PITA to learn how to add diacriticals just for this one post, so I will take the liberty of constructing this key to represent the various vowel sounds and ask you to imagine that they have the appropriate, errr, _hats_. Letter (: as in) Sound A : acorn, make **A** : cat, and _A_ : hall, mark E : beet, speak **E** : get, let I : I, mind **I** : this, wish _I_ : tiki, pique O : go, no **O** : Ozzy Osbourne, got U : uniform, prune **U** : umbrella, puppy Since **Lemur** is depriving me of the retrograde diphthong use of “y”, I will spell “yes”: _I_ **E** s. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/49 "2003-09-19T14:32:53Z")
Dad99: I don’t see a difference between your E and _I_. ---
**Author:** ![curly\_chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@curly\_chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curly_chick)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/50 "2003-09-19T15:30:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ludovic \* > \*\*The different spellings would be acceptable: it would introduce people to other’s accents. Most words would be perfectly clear once you knew what accent they were speaking in. \*\* Di yer think that wud werk ona globl messij bord liyk this? ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/51 "2003-09-19T15:39:12Z")
AS for the OP, I don’t know, there is something about ecks rated and and EcKSEcksEcks movie that is unseemly. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/52 "2003-09-19T16:15:32Z")
Gad, if only we’d had ths conversation before trillions of dollars was spent on computer equipment with ASCII code permanently wired into it, fixing the alphabet’s size and order. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/53 "2003-09-19T17:08:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > \*\*Dad99: > > I don’t see a difference between your E and _I_. \*\* There isn’t one. But don’t complain to me about it; it’s **Lemur’s** new alphabet. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/54 "2003-09-19T17:43:09Z")
😃 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/55 "2003-09-19T17:50:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kaylasdad99 \* > \*\*There isn’t one. But don’t complain to me about it; it’s **Lemur’s** new alphabet. \*\* Wait a minute. You proposed the vowel additions. And the idea is to SIMPLIFY, so redundancies need not applly. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/56 "2003-09-19T18:13:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > \*\*Wait a minute. You proposed the vowel additions. And the idea is to SIMPLIFY, so redundancies need not applly. 🙂 \*\* No, I didn’t. **Lemur** proposed adding diacriticals (hats) to the vowels. I didn’t feel like learning how to do them for the purposes of the post, so I made a key to equate to the diacriticals that you can already find in the pronunciation guide of the dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/57 "2003-09-19T23:51:07Z")
“Dear Mister President: There are too many letters nowadays. Please eliminate three. I am not a nut. (signed) Abraham J. Simpson.” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/58 "2003-09-20T00:34:55Z")
Umm, **Lemur** , it’s already been done: [UNIFON ALPHABET](http://www.unifon.org/unifon-alfabet.html) ---
**Author:** ![Fornit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c89c15/32.png) [@Fornit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fornit)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/59 "2003-09-20T17:05:59Z")
Oh…can you say the letter ‘K’? Oh, yes. Khaki, kind, kettle, Kipling, kipper, Kuwait, Keble Bollege Oxford. Yes, yes but why don’t you use the letter ‘K’ instead of the letter ‘C’? What, spell bolour with a ‘K’? Yes! Kolour! Oh, thank you! I never thought of that. What a silly bunt. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/60 "2003-09-20T17:21:07Z")
yEs, kIrli. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061.md?page=4)