Video: At 26 letters long, the English alphabet isn’t the most complicated string of symbols and characters to master, even for a five-year-old. But that’s because it has been put on a strict diet over the years that helped it slim down and shed 10 additional letters that were either deemed superfluous, redundant or just downright confusing.
GIF: YouTube
As YouTube’s Austin McConnell enlightens us, the ampersand symbol (&) used to be included at the end of our alphabet (as a shortened version of the word and), and the “y” in signs such as “Ye Ol’ Tavern” was derived from another long-dead symbol that represented the “th” sound. It turns out we all sound kind of stupid pronouncing it “yee old”.
[YouTube via Laughing Squid]