LETTER

LETTER1 An alphabetic symbol such as A or a, B or b. In WRITING based on the classical Roman ALPHABET, the separation of letters into majuscules (CAPITAL letters) and minuscules (small letters), the many variant alphabets (such as for English and Spanish), the typefaces available to them, and the distinctive joined letters of cursive handwriting have produced a wide range of letter forms.

Naming letters

In the GREEK alphabet, each letter has a name that is not directly related to its sound value (alpha, beta, gamma, etc.), but this practice is not common in ROMAN-derived ALPHABETS. The ways in which letters are referred to in English (ay, bee, cee, etc.) echo those of FRENCH, except that French double-v is English double-u, and the name of y may descend from the rounded OLD ENGLISH pronunciation of that VOWEL. Except for h, w, the names (ay, bee, cee, etc.) have a recognizable relationship with the sounds they commonly represent. The vowel letters are named by the long values in mate, meet, might, moat, mute, not the short values as in pat, pet, pit, pot, putt/put. Nine CONSONANTS in BrE and ten in AmE are named with a vowel after the sound value: with following ee in the case of b, c, d, g, p, t, v (and AmE z) and ay in the case of j, k. Six others are named with a preceding short e: f, l, m, n, s, x. The remainder (h, q, r, w, y, and BrE zed) have individual names.

Letters as symbols

When letters are used as symbols they may operate alone, in sets, or in combination with words: (1) Alone: capitals A, B, C, etc., to mark an educational or other grade, X to indicate a mystery; small letters such as a, x, and y as used in mathematical expressions. (2) In sets: zzz in cartoons and elsewhere, to represent sleep; the thousands of letter-based abbreviations, such as BBC, NATO, e.g., i.e., UN/U.N. (3) In combination with a word, as an ABBREVIATION: BrE L-plate, where L means Learner (such plates being attached to the front and rear of motor vehicles); AmE T-bill, where T means Treasury (a reference to high-denomination promissory notes). (4) Combined with one or more words as part of a series: B-movie in the motion-picture industry; C minor in music. (5) Representing a shape: X in Charing X for the junction known as Charing Cross in London; U-turn a turn made through 180°. Some letters operate within established conventions, such as A, B, C and X, Y, Z, as the opening and closing letters of the Roman alphabet, often used to refer to sets of three things taken in order. A to Z means from the beginning to the end of something, such as a subject to be learned.

The uses of letter symbols are complex and varied, and include: economy of expression in generalizing and in labelling, mnemonic aid, the replacement and augmentation of numbers, and special effects. For example: through such formulas as How do we get from Point A to Point B? and Flight X is now boarding at Gate Y; fonybas, a mnemonic list of coordinating conjunctions (for, or, nor, yet, but, as, so), and St Wapniacl, once used to help US children memorize the departments of government in the order in which they were created (State, Treasury, War, Attorney General, Post Office, Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor); alliterative sets of three (the three Bs for Bach, Beethoven, Brahms), the words sometimes adapted to fit the idea and the rhythm (the three Rs for reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic); A, B, C for 1, 2, 3, B–51, F–18 (types of US aircraft) or 4A (the top stream or track of the fourth year in a school).

Special effects

Although all letters are available for use as special symbols, K and X have been particularly popular for such purposes. The uses of K include: an abbreviation meaning one thousand (from kilo), 10K being 10,000 of a unit of currency; a token of alienness, as in Amerika, for the US conceived as dominated by Communists or Nazis; an eye-catching spelling for words in q and c, as with a company called Kwik-Fit and cartoon characters called the Krazy Kids. The uses of X include: a token for something unknown: Mr X, Substance X, X-ray; to represent ex-, as in MX for missile experimental, in Xtra strong and X-ellent (compare D-grading and D-lightful); for Christ in Xmas, representing the Greek letter khi; to signify censorship: an X-rated movie, not to be shown to minors; as the signature of an illiterate person; to mark a place on a map or where a signature should go on a paper (commonly called a cross and not necessarily identified as a letter); to represent a kiss, often in a series written in a letter.

Letters in word use and word-formation

Letter symbols are often attributive (an A student, Type B behaviour), and occur as abbreviations in compounds (A-bomb, N-test for atomic bomb, nuclear test). They may serve to emphasize significant words, whose full form may be taboo (the F-word for fuck), undesirable (the big C for cancer), or highly significant (the big O for the Olympics). Technical letter symbols in electrical engineering include GeV for gigaelectron volt and TeV for teravolt. Such symbols can include an AMPERSAND: R & D for research and development. However, it may not always be easy to distinguish letter symbols from initialisms: in Britain, ABC may refer to the socio-economic classes A, B, C taken together; in the 1983 general election in Canada, they meant Anybody but Clark; in Australia, they stand for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; in Los Angeles, they have been used to mean American-born Chinese; in military terms, they mean atomic, biological, chemical.

See the entries for individual letters, A–Z, and ACRONYM, ACUTE ACCENT, AITCH, ASH, DIACRITIC, DIGRAPH, ENG, ESH, ETH, GRAVE ACCENT, INITIAL, INITIALISM, LETTER WORD, LITERAL, LONG S, ORTHOGRAPHY, SILENT LETTER, SPELLING, THORN, TRANSLITERATION, YOGH.