SPELLING THE ALPHABET

Here’s a question you may have heard before: How do you spell the letters of the alphabet? Who here has had that question come up? My eleven-year-old was studying his spelling words the other day - personally I think this third grader has a better vocabulary than me based on the list he brings me every week. However; that aside, he stopped for a moment and asked me “Dad, how do you spell “F”? I said, “You mean the letter F?” He said “Yes.” I gave him the old nonplussed look – the one with the head cocked to one side, eyebrow slightly raised, quizzical/puzzled look … Suffice to say - I looked at him strangely for a moment. “You spell F F.” Then I got to thinking about it. Letters don’t have spellings, do they? Letters are what you use to spell words. They’re aren’t words themselves. You spell the letter A with nothing but a freaking A! But, I decided to look just for the hell of it and pulled out the Websters. No, I don’t mean a list of acronyms used when netsurfing. The actual hard copy on paper Websters Collegiate Dictionary. Remember the book that tells you how words are spelled?! The one that you can only use if you know enough spelling to find the word in the first place…

Guess how you spell the letter F. F is spelled E-F-F! Freaking amazing! The alphabet is a set of 26 words, each with their own spelling. Who’d a’thought it? You realize how you spell fuck? “Eff-Yew-See-Kay…!” Well, tell her I had a good time last night.

How about the word ‘Sky’? “Ess-Kay-Why”…. I know what Kay-Why is. I could have used that last night when or eff I saw Kay. Why? Why not? If you really need to ask I’ll let her tell you.

Eff-yew-see-kay-aye-in-gee Ridiculous!