My duty as a Cavalier Daily Life columnist is to inform my fellow University students about issues that are important and relevant to their lives. Today, I will address the topic of letters. There seem to be many of you out there who think letters are optional. They most certainly are not. I don’t know how many times I have come across “thre” instead of “there,” and don’t even get me started on abbreviations — “luv” is not “love.”
The importance of certain letters is often overlooked, especially — in my experience — by engineers. There are a whole bunch of letters, 26 in our alphabet to be exact, and only a handful of numerals. I am no math major, but I do know that the amount of permutations that can be made from letters far exceeds the amount of permutations made from numbers. So yeah, letters are important. But, can you imagine if we were not graced with some particular letter of the alphabet? If the letter “t” was taken away for a day, what would happen? Certainly terrible and tremendous things would transform the way we talk. Cue the “Twilight Zone” music.
First and foremost, our fearless leader, Thomas Jefferson, would be reduced to Homas Jefferson. That almost sounds like Hummus Jefferson — in which case we would have to eat sprouts and bow our heads in shame. The UTS buses would go nowhere if they relinquished the “t” in their acronym. There would be confusion in all bathrooms across Grounds as people gave up drying their hands with towels and instead used paper birds.
If President Taft was Aft, he would have been riding along in a ship rather than trying to fit in that tiny tub, and we would have one less president to make fun of. World War II would become World War Wo, as in World War Woah, and every time you discussed it with someone they would look around to see what you were surprised at. It would not be conducive to educated conversation. Depots would be depos; however, depots are worthless anyway, so that really doesn’t matter.
Our childhoods would be completely messed up. Instead of indulging in a tattle on a younger sibling, we would have indulged in ale, which is a rather unhealthy for a 5-year-old.
Nobody wants to use oile paper, and if everyone took urns instead of turns, a lot of ashes would be missing. If “the” was replaced with “he,” our gender-neutral world would crumble. Whenever a sequential story was told, an obnoxious bird would fly about because “hen” would replace “then.” Also, you would never be able to talk about art without being confused with Long John Silver. Example: “I love arrr-.”
On a positive note, Britney Spears wouldn’t have made it so far with the salty, prickly and less than sensuous name Briney Spears. Paris Hilton would have a sex ape rather than a sex tape, which is only slightly more terrifying.
In short, if the letter “t” was removed for the day, chaos would ensue, and counselors would be called on to ease the nightmares of our childhoods. My point is this: All of you letter-haters who write “your” and really mean “you’re,” or think that “bye,” “buy” and “by” can be used interchangeably, should know that one letter can make a world of difference. This lesson should have been learned in the third grade, but take it in now. You engineers can brag about the practicality of your profession, but try using a t-square without the letter “t.”
Maggie’s column runs biweekly Fridays. She can be reached a m.jones@cavalierdaily.com.
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