12 Letters That Didn't Make the Alphabet.
When I was a kid in school and had to take extensive lecture notes from one of the worst teachers I ever had--our 7th grade Texas history teacher--I made up right out of my head symbols pretty much identical to "that" and "eng" so I could (in theory) write notes faster.
I also used a numeral "2" with a slash through it for "to" or "too."
He wasn't one of the worst teachers I ever had just because I had to take lecture notes all year long. He was one of the worst because he was ignorant and knew nothing about Texas history--getting all his information from some book he had taken from the high school library. The first time I corrected one of his mistakes, he gave me extra points. The second time he only grunted acknowledgement. The third time he told me, "Shut up, Peschke." After that I never spoke to him again.
I have to quibble with them about the 'long s', though. It has always struck me as a holdover from the German ß. Character map calls it a 'sharp S', which is accurate. Older English printing always seems to have that character wherever you hear a sharp S sound, not randomly at all.
ReplyDeleteOne of my college-era note symbols that I used was drawing a small triangle to stand for the word/concept "change". For the life of me I cannot remember where I picked that up, but I used it so often that I still use it to this day when writing quick notes.
ReplyDeleteAnytime I see a long "s" the only thing I can think of is that episode of "The Vicar of Dibley" where the ditzy blonde is reading a Bible passage from their antique Bible that was written way back in long "s" times. She keeps misreading every one of them as an "f" instead of an "s," and then she gets to the word "succor."
ReplyDeleteNot that "succor" pronounced correctly is much better!
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