# 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:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/61 "2003-09-20T20:53:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by KidCharlemagne \* > \*\*Why not just speak Esperanto? > > [http://www.esperanto-chicago.org/key.htm#\_ALPHABET](http://www.esperanto-chicago.org/key.htm#_ALPHABET) \*\* Who the heck comes from Esperland?! Just razzin’. * * * True Blue Jack ---
**Author:** ![Milum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Milum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milum)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/62 "2003-09-21T01:19:46Z")
Any of you folk ever read **Ella Minnow Pea** by \* Mark Dunn\*? Kinda cute storyline related to the op of this discussion. Go ahead **ralph124c** , you have the the world’s permission to eliminate “X, Y, and Z” from the alphabet. There is no governing body that dictates the use of words or letters, only usage does. But be kind, in _David Sacks’_ book\*\* Language Visible:\* Unraveling the Mystery of the Alphabet from A to Z\*\*\* the lowly “Z”, the least used letter in the alphabet, the letter Shakespheare writes of in **King Lear** as “\* thou whoreson zed, thou unnecessary letter\*”. In the book _David Sacks_ sez in part… “Soothing and intriguing, the “Z” sound suggests sleep, bees, or high flying planes. It is distinct from “S.”…and as english grammarian Richard Mulcaster observed in 1582, “Z is a cosonant much heard amongst us, and seldom seen”. I myself, propose the addition of a letter with a symbol that looks like this \*_\*_ and is sounded with a nasal vibrating"unk” with an abrupt stop, much like the oink of a pig but better. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/63 "2003-09-21T12:48:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kaylasdad99 \* > \*\*The problem being, it is not a consonant sound. See my prior post. \*\* Your previous post merely says that you personally do not pronounce the y sound. By that logic, we could get rid of any letter we want by agreeing to pronounce it some other way. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/64 "2003-09-22T07:45:33Z")
Sadly, the unifon site doesn’t work for me. The reason I wasn’t exercized about vowel reform has been mentioned before. Vowel pronunciations vary widely, and assigning definate characters for each vowel sound is an exercise in frustration. Although it would be nice to eliminate silent E. (“It can turn a man into a mane, it can turn a pan into a pane…”). I’d rather add a hat to a vowel than add a nonsensical E to the end. I would spell “yes” “ies”. Y does not really have a distinct consonantal function. Any time you see Y, just substitute I. I think we could get by with separating the vowels into long and short. Short A is A, long A would be an upside down A. E and backwards E, I and sideways I, O and ¥Ø, U and sidways U. R w kld stp rtng vwls ltg©£r nd jst rt ©£ knsnts, nd nfr ©£ vwls frm kntkst. S hw z ©£t s? But somehow, I’m fond of the old vowels after all. And what do you do for words that are all vowels? We can surely agree that 5 characters isn’t even close to enough for all the vowel sounds out there. It would be even more fun if we could get new characters for every dipthong too. As for all the hard coded ASCII out there, perhaps that can be fixed. I was always upset that they fixed the Y2K bug, but they left the Y10K bug as a ticking timebomb. Perhaps when we retool for Y10K we can redo all ASCII coding as well. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/65 "2003-09-22T07:47:34Z")
The second “O” letter was supposed to be an Omega symbol. And there were supposed to be lower case edh symbols there. How did that happen? I cut and pasted them in just fine… ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/66 "2003-09-22T13:39:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*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. \*\* That’s what Unicode is for. And all you people who want to eliminate “y” from the alphabet, spell “year” phonetically in such a way that you can distinguish it from “ear.” It’ll never happen, of course. Christ, here in the U.S., we can’t even get people to change to _metric_. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/67 "2003-09-22T17:45:38Z")
I can spell “year” without “y”. Iear. Simple, no? Any place you have a “Y” you can put an “I”. “Y” is not a consonant. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061/68 "2003-09-22T21:49:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \* > \*\*I can spell “year” without “y”. Iear. Simple, no? Any place you have a “Y” you can put an “I”. \*\* You could also put an “F” and as long as we all agree that whatever alternative we use, we prounounce it “Y”, then we are home and dry. Iear is not naturally pronounced the same way as Year by most people. Iambic is not pronounced Yambic. Iatrogenic is not pronounced Yatrogenic. Ionic is not pronounced Yonic. > [@](#): > > \*\*“Y” is not a consonant. \*\* Cite? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simplify-the-alphabet-lets-get-rid-of-x-y-z/202061.md?page=3)