And now we resume our idyllic stroll through the revealed wonders of an exposited alphabet by examining the fascinating secrets of the letter T.
" ... T minus seventeen seconds and counting" the monotone computerized female voice informs our brawny celluloid hero. "T minus sixteen seconds and counting" the voice continues: a narrative device informing the rapt, popcorn-devouring cinema audience that something interesting is about to occur: a missile launch; a space craft lift off; some sort of explosion.
But that's just in the movies, of course. In normal everyday life enunciation of the letter T usually implies that something that is already extremely boring is about to become even more impossibly tedious: "T-t-t-toothache", for instance.
I suppose that, at least viewed from a particularly poorly educated and unsophisticated point of view, the resemblance of the lower case "t" to a ship's anchor might endow this junior version of the letter with an amusingly naif nautical charm, rather like the sort of cheap prop that might decorate the stage of an especially shoddy amateur production of The Pirates of Penzance, but that is purely a matter for those unimaginative sorts of people.
Anyway, the Hebrews, naturally, and the ancient Greeks, obviously, knew T as "taw" and "tau" respectively, and were sick to death of the tiresome letter as it was also the chief bore of their written communication systems. And finally, the Egyptian hieroglyphic scribes - cheekily - drew their T's as a yawning and very sleepy Pharoah.
Fortunately, tomorrow we pick up the pace with U.
Your take on "T" is to a T.
Posted by: OuTer Life | December 27, 2004 at 16:49
Hi boys!
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Posted by: Hi, my sites: | January 31, 2008 at 10:45