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Were P and R Once the Same Letter?
Do you ever stop and look at the shape of our alphabet? Each letter looks natural to us now, but all those lines and circles have unique histories. It’s easy to make assumptions that our letters make...
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How do people cheat at Scrabble?
A promising young Scrabble player was just ejected from a national five-day tournament in Florida after he was caught cheating. You may be wondering: how can you cheat at Scrabble? He didn’t add words...
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Could English exist without the letter G?
Can you imagine a world in which the sounds of G and C were both represented by the letter C? Try to imacine it. Believe it or not, for much of their history, the sounds of C and G were represented by...
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Are Scrabble tile values in need of an overhaul?
Invented by out-of-work architect Alfred Butts during the Great Depression, Scrabble is a staple of word lovers’ lives. The popularity of this beloved game took off in the mid-1950s and has been an...
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Does Your Handwriting Really Say Something About Your Personality?
Graphologists, or self-proclaimed handwriting experts, claim that it does. Specifically they claim that individuals who share certain personality traits write in a similar fashion, so graphologists...
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What Character Was Removed from the Alphabet?
Johnson & Johnson, Barnes & Noble, Dolce & Gabbana: the ampersand today is used primarily in business names, but that small character was once the 27th part of the alphabet. Where did it...
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What Animal Inspired the Letter A?
There is quite a bit of mystery surrounding the letter A. From its prestigious first place position to its interesting shape, tracing the first letter of the English alphabet uncovers a history that...
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A Short History of the Letter B
The letter B was part of the Phoenician alphabet more than 3000 years ago in 1000 BCE. At that time, the letter was called beth and looked a little different, but it made the sound of b and was second...
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Word Fact: What’s the Name for the Dot Over the i and j?
While many languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, add specific accents to the letters or characters throughout their alphabet, the English alphabet has only two letters that include a diacritic dot....
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The Curious Chronicle of the Letter C
The English language is infamously difficult in part because its spelling befuddles even native speakers as letters take on different sounds depending on what letters surround it. Few letters exemplify...
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