Well, I know that the English alphabet was copied from Latin which borrowed it from the Etruscans who modified the Greek which came from the Phoenicians.
I know that all the letters were originally pictograms: “A” stood for “ox” (hold a capital A upside-down and see his horns), “B” stood for “house” (like in all those synagogs named Beth-This and Beth-That), and “C” and “G” both evolved out of the symbol for “camel” (tilt a Greek gamma over and see his hump).
I know the Romans had a second wave of borrowings after they absorbed Greek learning, which is why zeta ended up at the end as “Z”, eta turned into H because the Romans didn’t need two letters for E, and upsilon was absorbed as “Y” after it had already evolved into “U”.
I know that “V” for the Romans was a half-vowel sound (like many Indians pronounce the letter V)–which explains the otherwise mysterious inscriptions like E PLURIBVS VNVM–and that later “V” split into separate consonant V and vowel U forms, which this is why the DOUBLE U looks like two V’s.
I also know Old English (AKA Anglo-Saxon) had three other letters, (thorn and edth, two symbols for the “th” sounds, plus yogh, a sort of semi-vowel G and the reason for all those stupid English spellings with “gh” in them), but Norman scribes weren’t interested in using any letters borrowed from Nordic runes.
(There is much more to how the Phoenician and Aramaic alif-beth-gimel spread around the world, including to the scripts of Israel, Arabia, India, and even Mongolia, but that is off the topic of my old friends, the English ABC.)
BC13: I have no idea who Joe Allen Doty is. From what I can gather from a brief Google search, you may be referring to a preacher. In that case, I can guarantee he is nobody I would hang with and that he’d not want to hang with me. Whatever caused you to connect him with me?
pschearer,
He posts on a number of strips here at gocomics. The last one I saw was on Broom Hilda - but there are more. I’m surprised you haven’t seen any of his posts - there are many.
Donna Haag about 15 years ago
not even that
jpozenel about 15 years ago
That’s right kmccall. Learning to spell = brainwashing. Finally we know the cause of all our problems. Spelling! Good thinking on your part.
MatureCanadian about 15 years ago
The lad is obviously a Republican!
pschearer Premium Member about 15 years ago
What do we really know about them?
Well, I know that the English alphabet was copied from Latin which borrowed it from the Etruscans who modified the Greek which came from the Phoenicians.
I know that all the letters were originally pictograms: “A” stood for “ox” (hold a capital A upside-down and see his horns), “B” stood for “house” (like in all those synagogs named Beth-This and Beth-That), and “C” and “G” both evolved out of the symbol for “camel” (tilt a Greek gamma over and see his hump).
I know the Romans had a second wave of borrowings after they absorbed Greek learning, which is why zeta ended up at the end as “Z”, eta turned into H because the Romans didn’t need two letters for E, and upsilon was absorbed as “Y” after it had already evolved into “U”.
I know that “V” for the Romans was a half-vowel sound (like many Indians pronounce the letter V)–which explains the otherwise mysterious inscriptions like E PLURIBVS VNVM–and that later “V” split into separate consonant V and vowel U forms, which this is why the DOUBLE U looks like two V’s.
I also know Old English (AKA Anglo-Saxon) had three other letters, (thorn and edth, two symbols for the “th” sounds, plus yogh, a sort of semi-vowel G and the reason for all those stupid English spellings with “gh” in them), but Norman scribes weren’t interested in using any letters borrowed from Nordic runes.
(There is much more to how the Phoenician and Aramaic alif-beth-gimel spread around the world, including to the scripts of Israel, Arabia, India, and even Mongolia, but that is off the topic of my old friends, the English ABC.)
GROG Premium Member about 15 years ago
pschearer, Have you been hanging out with JoeAllenDoty?
pschearer Premium Member about 15 years ago
BC13: I have no idea who Joe Allen Doty is. From what I can gather from a brief Google search, you may be referring to a preacher. In that case, I can guarantee he is nobody I would hang with and that he’d not want to hang with me. Whatever caused you to connect him with me?
GROG Premium Member about 15 years ago
pschearer, He posts on a number of strips here at gocomics. The last one I saw was on Broom Hilda - but there are more. I’m surprised you haven’t seen any of his posts - there are many.
Ushindi about 15 years ago
BC13: Sometimes you outdo yourself, and the JAD ? to pschearer was one of those times. ROFLMAO. (Poor Joe)