The new 27th letter of the alphabet!

The letter is called "the" (Ћ). It is used to write the word "the". It is similar to the Ampersand (&) which is used to write the word "and" in a quicker way.

Here is a short video talking about the new letter:



And here is a website with more information (Link)

Mathis has invested $38,000 into developing the symbol which he would like to see added as a 27th letter of the alphabet.

"The word 'and' is only the fifth-most used word in English and it has its own symbol - the ampersand," Mathis told The Age. "Isn't it time we accorded the same respect to 'the'?"

Here are my thoughts:

I don't understand the need to make a new "symbol" at all. If it was silly to make a symbol for "and" (&) when it is only three letters, it should be just as silly to make a new symbol for the word "the" (Ћ).

Bringing back the letter thorn (þ) would save even more space than a symbol for "the".

Þ is "th". It can be used in many places such as the word:

this, that, then, there, thick, thin, theater, throat, throw, through, think, think, and many other words.

Bringing "thorn" back wouldn't really be adding something "new" to the English Language because it was already here. it just stopped being used for some reason.


Here are a few examples comparing Ћ and þ.


Ћ:

That's Ћ one I was talking about.

þ:

þat's þe one I was talking about.

...

Ћ:

What was Ћ point of that?

þ:

What was þe point of þat?

...

Ћ:

Not that one, Ћ other one.

þ:

Not þat one, þe oþer one.

Unless you are making long lists saying "the". I think bringing back thorn (þ) would be better since it will not only make "the" short but also many other words.

The only reason we got rid of it is because printers from overseas did not have the "þ" letter, but now it is so available. It will save space and ink when printing out papers. You can use it by holding ALT while pressing the numbers 0222. An easier way is to just get the symbol, press ctrl+c to copy it and then press ctrl+p whenever you need to use it.

F Þat.

Someone else tried to release a whole new alphabet, and this was one of those features.

It was someone well known, like Thomas Jefferson or something. Im about asleep right now....and will leave it at that.

reply to post by arpgme

then press ctrl+p whenever you need to use it

By the time I press ctrl / p I could type "th".

Would it really save that much ink? Maybe if you're a publisher but for an individual? No. I'll type "the" and "th".

So in other words, this guy is trying to add "The" to the alphabet..... I mean, I could sort of (not really) see just making a new symbol, like @$%^&.. but to tack a symbol representing a word, onto the alphabet.. what....


"A, B, C..... X, Y, Z, The" Ain't happenin'

reply to post by introV


That's the same thing I was thinking. Ampersand (&) stands for "and" and that is NOT a letter of the alphabet so why should the (Ћ) be?

And have you seen the video? It reminds me of an infomercial.

Your Þ (thorn) would really mess up the one song everyone knows from start to finish -- the alphabet song! And where would you put it? After t? After h? At the end? Somewhere else? Perhaps more importantly does a capital Þ look like the small one? Does it stand for TH or Th? Can a mouse pull it from a lion's paw?

This makes me wonder about w -- was it actually uu at one time? In some fonts, uu and w look almost identical.

I'll just stick with th and Th instead. It's so much simpler.

Looks a tad like the astromical sign for Saturn and as the guy above said, I also like the alphbet song and where would you put it. We don't use the & sign as a letter.

'The' wife says the shorthand sign for 'the' is a dot the = . which is far quicker anyway.

What is so difficult about writing 'the' we don't need a symbol in our alphabet for this easy word

reply to post by BayesLike

Originally posted by BayesLike
Your Þ (thorn) would really mess up the one song everyone knows from start to finish -- the alphabet song!

Not really, it's one syllable.

Originally posted by BayesLike
And where would you put it? After t? After h? At the end? Somewhere else?

The alphabets are in alphabetical order. "th" comes after "t" but before "u".

so it would be t, Þ (THorn), u

Originally posted by BayesLike
This makes me wonder about w -- was it actually uu at one time? In some fonts, uu and w look almost identical.

Back then, there was no "u" or "w" there was only "v" and it was used for both.

For example, "deus" (which means God in Latin) was always written as devs. It wasn't until later on that the "u", "v", and "w" got introduced.

Originally posted by gotya
reply to post by arpgme

 

then press ctrl+p whenever you need to use it

By the time I press ctrl / p I could type "th".

Well that's funny b/c I thought it looked a whole lot like the letter 'p' anyway! Consider this sentence, if you will, and try to read it without feeling like you need speech therapy...

I like þose peaches-- þey are pretty good. I þink I eat anoþer. How þoughtful of you for þinking of me! I þank you!

Go on, read it out loud really fast. I dare ya!!!

Not buying it. And I hope it doesn't catch on.

I'm too used to reading and writing English the way its meant to be read and written. That new symbol would just break up my rhythm.

Are people really that lazy that they need a symbol to save themselves the effort of typing/writing two extra alphabets?

It is exactly the same letter Ћ which is used in cyrillic alphabet.
How dumb can they be by implementing letters from other alphabets for sole purpose of shortening the words.
Ћ wiki

Originally posted by arpgme
The alphabets are in alphabetical order. "th" comes after "t" but before "u". so it would be t, Þ (THorn), u

Sounds are placed in an order by convention; there's no particular reason Þ would follow t that I can hear.

Also, following the same logic that Þ follows t, we should then have w following u instead of v. After all, w (per se) apparently was a uu at one time according to several sources.

So, where was Þ in the alphabet when it was still in the alphabet?

reply to post by arpgme


I do like the look of tshe better than the look of thorn ( Ћ looks like th ), but as far as your reasoning vrs his, I'd side with you. Actually, I'll expound upon your idea, and say we should give each phoneme its own letter - it would make english a lot easier to use.

Edit:
while we're at it, we should change grammar too. we should only use capital letters for the names of people or places, and a comma is to be used every time you pause in a sentence.

reply to post by BayesLike


Here is what I found about the old English alphabet:

In the year 1011, a writer named Byrhtferð ordered the Old English alphabet for numerological purposes.[1] He listed the 24 letters of the Latin alphabet (including et ligature) first, then 5 additional English letters, starting with the Tironian note ond (⁊), resulting in a list of 29 symbols:

A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z & ⁊ Ƿ Þ Ð Æ

- Wikipedia

Note: V, U, and W were all the same thing at one point.

In Latin God was written as "devs" instead of "deus". This is the why English lacked it too. There was no "u" OR "w" until later on.

Before we switched to The Latin Alphabet, we were using a magical runic alphabet called fuþorc (link).

Someone else tried to release a whole new alphabet, and this was one of those features.

It was someone well known, like Thomas Jefferson or something. Im about asleep right now....and will leave it at that.

Benjamin Franklin....

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by AkumaStreak
F Þat.

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