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The Daily Toad: Proudly disseminating sensationalised rubbish since 1645. Issue 31,372 1st January 2007.


Alphabet to be Listed Alphabetically

Alphabet

The now archaic letter form

That was the communiqué issued by the ministry of education yesterday, preparing the nation for the first major shake up of letter order since the use of the 'Roman' script was first codified in the 5th century BC.

'Listing the alphabet alphabetically is a no-brainer,' explained Redmond Harris on Tuesday, 'for too long 'A', 'B', 'C' and so forth have been unindexed and in an apparently random order.' Asked how an alphabet could be anything but in alphabetical order, Harris replied: 'we're talking phonetics, here, and having 'Eh' as the first in the alphabet is just plain stupid. 'Aitch' will be the new first letter in the alphabet, followed closely by 'Are', 'Bee' and 'Dee'. All the words beginning with 'E' such as Ee, Eff, Eh, El, Em, En, Es, Ex and Eye have all been grouped together, and only Zed and Dee occupy the same slot since the shake-up.'

Dismayed lexicographers are dubious over the idea which even cautious estimates place at a cost of implementation of three billion pounds. Detractors also pointed out that under the new system, the first letter of the alphabet would be H and then R, requiring the new alphabet to follow those new alphabetical guidelines. 'Absolutely not,' replied Harris smugly, 'for reasons of increased clarity, the only thing that will be listed by the old alphabet will be the new alphabet.' The new alphabet, in old alphabetical order, will go like this: Aitch, Are, Bee, Dee, Doubleyou, Ee, Eff Eh, El, Em, En, Es, Ex, Eye, Gee, Jay, Kay, Oh, Pee, Queue, See, Tee, Vee, Why, You, and Zed.

Wendell Hatchett, reporting for The Toad,

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