quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock.
So this morning I woke up at seven, which is rather early for me, and started thinking about the alphabet (which is a thing that I do) and then couldn't stop thinking about the alphabet. Because nobody has a really good reason for why it is in the order it's in. It's some speculation about how the ox was important to the Phoenicians, and also something about Kabbalah? And numeric values being assigned to the letters, but only some of them? I don't know! But I did learn these things, instead of going back to sleep:
1. The Romans stole the Greek alphabet, because that is what Romans did with Greeks, and that is what we call the Latin alphabet. Which doesn't seem fair. BUT THE THING IS, when the Romans took the alphabet, they dropped the letter Z, because they had gotten along JUST FINE without it all this time. Then they readopted it like six hundred years later because whoops, if we're going to steal all these words from Greek along with their alphabet, we might need the letter Z. I am picturing some hilariously sheepish orthographers. They stuck it at the end, though, because that is where it belongs, so at least one letter's placement makes sense.
2. The Duenos inscription! This is kind of awesome, this text written on the side of some pots from 2600 (ish) years ago. Not necessarily the text itself, because even the section of that article rather archly titled "A coherent rendering" is not, in fact, that coherent, but that people 2600 years ago were writing things on the sides of pots. I sort of want to bail on my alphabet tattoo (current font frontrunner [fontrunner]: Archer Light) and get this instead. Although I don't want to get that until I don't have to alphabetize things for a living, anyway. So.
Completely unrelatedly: greatest attack ad ever. Who would want to vote for Mayor Kickskidsintheface? NOBODY.
Right. So. Anyway. I am going to go buy pants now, because I am down one pair. Apparently when you wear jeans on a regular basis for eight years, they might end up threadbare not only in the knees (manageable) but the butt (not manageable). I'll miss you, jeans.
1. The Romans stole the Greek alphabet, because that is what Romans did with Greeks, and that is what we call the Latin alphabet. Which doesn't seem fair. BUT THE THING IS, when the Romans took the alphabet, they dropped the letter Z, because they had gotten along JUST FINE without it all this time. Then they readopted it like six hundred years later because whoops, if we're going to steal all these words from Greek along with their alphabet, we might need the letter Z. I am picturing some hilariously sheepish orthographers. They stuck it at the end, though, because that is where it belongs, so at least one letter's placement makes sense.
2. The Duenos inscription! This is kind of awesome, this text written on the side of some pots from 2600 (ish) years ago. Not necessarily the text itself, because even the section of that article rather archly titled "A coherent rendering" is not, in fact, that coherent, but that people 2600 years ago were writing things on the sides of pots. I sort of want to bail on my alphabet tattoo (current font frontrunner [fontrunner]: Archer Light) and get this instead. Although I don't want to get that until I don't have to alphabetize things for a living, anyway. So.
Completely unrelatedly: greatest attack ad ever. Who would want to vote for Mayor Kickskidsintheface? NOBODY.
Right. So. Anyway. I am going to go buy pants now, because I am down one pair. Apparently when you wear jeans on a regular basis for eight years, they might end up threadbare not only in the knees (manageable) but the butt (not manageable). I'll miss you, jeans.