I’ve done a bit of a Google search on letter conservation and couldn’t really find anything other than letters about conservation.
Anyway, it’s time I blogged a theory I’ve been working on for a number of years now. I’ve shared it with a number of people as it’s matured and I think now it’s ready for the big screen. So here we go… I hope I can get it all down accurately here, and for that purpose I won’t be conserving any letters.
The basis of this theory is that, we, as humans, are allotted a finite number of letters for which to use while we are here in this life. To think that we have an unlimited or infinite number of letters to use is a ridiculous thought. These things have to come from somewhere, one can’t just create matter from nothing you know, its a basic law of the universe.
Have you ever met someone who mumble or slur so much that you can hardly understand them? Chances are they have either wasted their allotment of letters, or they were allocated a small number of letters to begin with. Either way, they no longer have the letters left in their letter cache (for want of a better word) to enable proper speech. If you plan on living a long time, and lets face it, the marvels of medicine these days have increased our expected life spans considerably, then you should take some steps now to prevent running out prematurely. I’ve been working on some tips and tricks that should help you conserve letters.
One little trick I like to use, is to switch common letters with uncommon letters that sound similar. If done right no one will even notice. For example when I say the word ‘Cat’, I tend to use a K instead of a C and say ‘Kat’. No one will notice your small deception (you can laugh at them in their ignorance too, another fun side game) and you will save your C’s and use up some spare K’s.
There are a large number of words that use silent letters. Whoever designed this language English certainly didn’t think about letter conservation. This blatant waste of letters highlights how old English is. People back then did not have access to the marvels of modern medicine and had bigger issues to worry about (like, being burnt at the stake for being a witch, for example). Running out of letters didn’t even occur to them back then. So whenever you say a word that has silent letters, you can just drop them out and no one will notice.
Another common waste of letters is those verbose words that use two letters to make a single sound. Ph to make an F sound is one example. Do what I suggested with the C, and use an F instead of ph. You’ll thank me one day. (Or at least be able to thank me should we one day meet.)
So that’s a bit of an overview of my theory of letter conservation. I’m going to see if I can dig out some of my notes I’ve made on the subject and see how it’s changed over the years. Might make a follow up post in the future if I have any letters left.
