Alphabet question

I've had this question rattling around in my brain for a few years. Why are the letters of our alphabet (english) in that particular order...ABCDE etc? Was this just some arbitrary convention given edict by some king or pope a zillion years ago? What got me thinking about it was I was once falsely accused of DUI and was asked to say my ABC's. Don't sing them just recite the alphabet which I did just fine. Now what if I had given all 26 letters but in a jumbled up way without repeating any or I had recited a line of poetry that had all the letters with no repeats? It appears that one can be arrested for simply rearranging the alphabet. What if I had asked the cop to give me Pi out to 16 decimal points? Could I assume he was intoxicated or just wanted a Donut instead of Pi(e). rant mode off Dan

Reply to
daniel peterman
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Pi are round

Conrbread are square!

Errol Groff

Errol Groff

Instructor, Manufacturing Technology H.H. Ellis Technical High School

613 Upper Maple Street Danielson, CT 06239

New England Model Engineering Society

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Reply to
Errol Groff

Well, if you look at the first few letters of the Greek alphabet, you will get a clue: ALPHA, BETA, ...

GWE

Reply to
Grant Erwin

Gamma, Delta

Reply to
Steve W.

Chuckle!

Well, if you ask this Greek boy, you'd quickly find that, while that may make sense to you folks, it doesn't hold a lot of water for those of us that speak Greek.

How many of you know that Beta is *not* a B? There is no B in the Greek language, but the sound, when necessary, is made up of two others letters combined. Beta is pronounced "Veeta".

Judging from that, the alphabet should read A, V, C, ------you get the idea.

There's only 24 letters in the Greek alphabet as I recall.

Harold

Reply to
Harold and Susan Vordos

Thats easy, they put them in alphabetical order. Regards, phredd

Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:

Reply to
Fred May

Pi song

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Reply to
Randy Replogle

Check this animated gif out..

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It's the evolution of the english alphabet

Mike

Reply to
Mike Martin

Morew than you really want to know about that question may be found here:

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And SWMBO would be happy to sell you a set of her alphabet cards in case you forget the names of the letters:

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Happy Holidays,

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

Whilst on the subject of alphabets, I recently became aware of the book, "Gadsby" written in english without the author ever once using a word containing the "most common" letter "e".

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Happy Holidays,

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

Gallagher ( the watermelon smashing coomedian) covered this in a TV special:

Gallagher: Over Your Head (1984)

Red

Reply to
Red

BUT BUT It ends up Omega not Zeta. ? :-) ...lew...

Reply to
Lew Hartswick

Cool.

Reply to
ff

I had a contest with a math nerd buddy in 8th grade to see who could memorize pi to more places. I won at 26. It is seriously stuck in my head, and experiments in college showed that I have to be absolutely stewed before I can't rattle it off any longer. Now that I am in my mid-50's there's all sorts of stuff I can't remember for 5 minutes, but pi will be with me till I croak.

My friend estimated that you can calculate the circumference of the visible universe (which was admittedly smaller back then) within an error of 4 feet using 26 places.

3.14159265358979323846264338

Doug White

Reply to
Doug White

Actually, if you do that, you get:

Aitch Are Ay Bee Cue Dee Double U Ee Ef El Em En Ess Ex Eye Gee Jay Kay Oh Pea See Tee Vee Wy Yu Zee

Reply to
Doug White

I got admonished recently for knowing it to 7 dp. I do some glass blowing and as an engineer I was pin pointed as one who would know the answer. I did and could recall it to 7 dp, it used to be more but not

26 for sure. For glass blow>Keywords:
Reply to
David Billington

recommend "ladle rat rotten hut". Just type that into Google, and pick any of the first few hits. The first time I saw this, I laughed so hard I had trouble breathing.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

It's a kids song:

Q dub-bul-ewe E R T Y U I O pasdf G H J K L Z X C V B N M ...

Reply to
toolbert

Give him number four on your fingers in binary especially if he asks you how the surf is in Nevada. If it's a women cop ask her what half of two thirds is.

SW who doesn't really want to get into bad cop stories again even though I have some new ones!

Reply to
Sunworshipper

Catherine was sick that day.

Reply to
Don Foreman

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