The Most Interesting Letter in the World

Jun 02, 2024

Y is the most interesting letter in the English language.

For starters, it's a consonant and a vowel, which is crazy, if you think about it. Even at the peak of progressivism, no one said it was OK to be he/him and she/her.

Y transcends culture.

But let’s not bury the lead. Y is fun to say! For example, when I was a kid and the Berlin Wall fell, while the press celebrated the end of a Cold War, they didn’t mention the real victory that day: We had a new, fun name to say: Yeltsin! Seriously. Try it. It rolls off the tongue and screams “I need an exclamation point!” And sure, the guy was an idiotic drunk, and a bad leader, but at least we got to say "Yeltsin” a lot.

Y is also rad because, unlike other letters with their cliché example phrases like "A is for apple" and "B is for ball," when you teach Y to a child, you use the yo-yo, a unique item that has somehow managed to stay relevant in our digital era, both as a toy and as a time-trusted metaphor for consistent fluctuation.

Still not convinced? How about the fact that this penultimate vowel-consonant can hold any position in a word. You can start with Y (Yodel), you can make it the only vowel in the middle (Gym) and it is by far the best phonetic anchor to punctuate a word: Let’s Partyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

In case it’s relevant, I didn't always know that I was obsessed with Y. I found out when someone pointed out that I used it in two of my kids' names (Tyler and Emily). Now I wish I’d named my other child Alyce (not Alice). And sure, I could file a legal name change, but I'm lazyyyyyy, ya know?

Speaking of kids, if you find yourself texting with one, you should know that Y isn’t just a letter. It’s also a word. However, unlike the other two letters that claim this privilege (“u” for “you” and “r” for “are”), Y now represents an interrogative, which means it is now a stand-alone sentence! Yup, it found a digital-loophole and is now officially the shortest sentence, since questions are sentences! (u mad? y?)

Teddy Roosevelt once said, “No man is above the law and no man below it." I guess he never met the letter Y, ‘cause this bad-ass letter has its own law. Indeed, Y became so popular as an anchor letter that when 18th century PhDs in England were making spelling rules, they accused it of violating anti-trust laws, which explains why when a word ends in Y, to pluralize it, it gets replaced by “ie” (e.g. sky/skies).

OK. I made that last part up. I didn’t actually discover a secret meeting between Daniel Webster, the Merriam Brothers, and the “Cabal of IE.” But that rule is real, and that sort of systemic bias is a scourge on our alphabet. The good news is that, despite such obvious discrimination, Y still comes out on top. Especially when you compare its real life uses to the other letters. For example, if you’re driving down a road that comes to a T, it means you can’t go on, and you’re being forced to change your direction.

But that’s not the case with our amicable Y! When you hit a Y in the road, you’re in Robert Frost’s fabled divergence paradigm. You’re not being told to “stop and reroute.” Nope. Y is all about possibility and hope. When you hit a Y, you get to choose what’s next, “And that [makes] all the difference.”

Last but not least, let’s discuss everyone’s favorite word. No, I’m not talking about sex. I’m referring to “yes.” (Although, come to think of it, “yes” does make sex consensual.) But seriously, it doesn’t matter who you are. All English speakers, from toddlers to improv actors to regular Joes, need to hear the word “yes” to thrive and feel alive, and you can’t spell or even say that glorious word without our old pal Y!

In closing, I’m not asking you to play favorites or to divorce your favorite letter. I mean, they’ve all got merits (Except Q, C, and X (See below). However, I would beg you to think long and hard about the important content I’ve provided you with today. And always remember: You can’t say “useful” without Y.

If you like philosophy, you will love this week’s coffin talk! Joel Bouchard is a doctoral student in psychology, a multi-instrumentalist record producer, author, painter, Army veteran, business leader, local government official, and host of the philosophy podcast From Nowhere to Nothing. Listen here.