Did you know?
The little dot on top of a small 'i' or 'j' has its own name: it is called a tittle! Some people think the saying 'to a T', meaning 'exactly right', may come from it.
Long ago, children reciting the alphabet said '&' as the 27th letter, after Z. They called it 'and per se and', which slowly became 'ampersand'. The sign is really E and T (Latin 'et', meaning 'and') joined together!
Rotokas, a language spoken on Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea, uses only 12 letters: A, E, G, I, K, O, P, R, S, T, U and V. It is thought to be the smallest alphabet in use today.
Try this: Letter Leaps
Look at this letter series: B, D, G, K, P, ?. Count how many steps along the alphabet each jump takes. What comes next? Then make up your own letter-leap series and try it on a friend. Remember: a good series has only one right answer!
Show answer
V. The jumps grow by one each time: 2, 3, 4, 5 and then 6.
Go further: Words in Order
In some words, the letters are already in alphabetical order: BEGIN, CHIMP, FIRST and ALMOST are a few. Other words have their letters in reverse alphabetical order, like SPOON (S, P, O, O, N). Dictionaries use alphabetical order to arrange thousands of words, so you can find any word quickly. Challenge your family: who can find the longest 'alphabetical word' in five minutes?