Alphabetical Quotes

“A’ STARTS ITS life in around 1800 BCE. Turn our modern ‘A’ upside down and you can see something of its original shape. Can you see an ox’s head with its horns sticking up in the air? If so, you can see the remains of this letter’s original name, ‘ox’, or ‘aleph’ in the ancient Semitic languages.”
― Michael Rosen, Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story

“In the early years of the nineteenth century, Jews sought equal rights in the German principalities. Part of the deal was that they would take on German names in their daily affairs. This had its price – quite literally; Jews had to buy these new names when some couldn’t afford to, and they were sometimes given derogatory, mocking or even obscene names: ‘Ochsenschwanz’ – ‘oxtail’ – with the tail being lewdly ambiguous; ‘Hinkediger’ – ‘hunchback’; ‘Kaufpisch’ – ‘sell-piss’.”
― Michael Rosen, Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story

“Non-Greeks have used Greek letters to be scientifically precise and specific, yet the reason why Greek was chosen – and is still being chosen – is cultural. In Roman times, Greek was the language of teachers, and in art the Romans looked to the Greeks as their progenitors. In the medieval period, the two foundation languages were seen to be Latin and Greek, with Greek being the older. Early scientists were assumed to have a level of education which would include knowing the Greek letters. For the writers of fiction and the namers of new substances or new products, the key issue is connotation – that cloud of associations that runs through and around every word we say and write. Using a Greek letter lends the object, being or character a scientific identity. Because so much modern science is beyond the uninitiated, the association is not only with science but also with mystery, something that only true boffin-heads really know and understand.”
― Michael Rosen, Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story

“The most Frenchified ways of speaking and writing English belong in the main to those uses of language which are to do with ruling, making and administering laws, the expression of ideas and religion, and most literature. The least Frenchified ways of speaking and writing belong in the main to those uses of language which are to do with the activities and ideas of the labouring classes and their domestic life, of small-time shopkeepers and lowly officials like sextons.”
― Michael Rosen, Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story