h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why is the alphabet in that order?

*Spins around in his chair, glad that he came into the office today*

That is a difficult one. My gut reaction is that the Alphabet Song is somehow responsible. That the letters are set up just so that they can rhyme and be in the right rythm.

However, I had pastrami for lunch, so I know my gut's not checking its facts. B and C could easily be switched. D and Z could easily be switched.

The time that the act was commited must be fairly recently, within the last few hundred years or so. Go much earlier than that, and there's actually a twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet, "Thorn." Thorn looked kinda like the letter "y", and was pronounced like our combination of the letters "th." That's why you see lotsa old signs that say "Ye Olde Shoppe." That Y isn't a Y, it's a Thorn. The sign actually says "The Olde Shoppe," but we've already forgotten about thorn.

But now, thorn's in our side, isn't it? This'll both be annoying, but we know where thorn is if we can feel it in our side to begin with. Thorn is the key to this mystery.

I've already got two ideas for suspects. One, I could check ye olde thymes (that "th" was pronounced like our "t", they did that too in the olden days), and see if maybe, just maybe there was a poet lookin' to make a buck. Wanted to make the "Alphabet Song" and get rich by thinking of something so clever. However, when you compare the name "Thorn" to the names of all the letters, you'll find that it doesn't rhyme, meaning that if the song was to be compleated in thyme for poet to cash in on it, the poet would have to get rid of the letter Thorn, and deprive us all of a perfectly good consonant.

The other potential culprit, however, might be the letter Thorn itself. What if Thorn had somethin' ta hide? What if Thorn was a wanted character. Maybe the mob of the time wanted to do Thorn in. Maybe Thorn *was* the mob of the time, and needed to hide from the law. The easiest way to hide from the law would be by faking one's own death. In that case, the poet who came up with the Alphabet song is just a patsy, a fall guy that history might recognize as a know-nothing hack.

Anyway, I believe the answer to your initial question is that the poet just put the letters that way because he made the random decisions to do it that way. No big mystery there. But the answer to your question has opened so many other doors that I'll have to investigate.

*Jumps out of his chair, steps out of his lab coat and puts on a trenchcoat*

However, this new investigation that I'm about to set out on will more than likely give a more precise answer to your initial question. I could be right, but then again maybe I'm the new patsy, now that the poet's probably been dead for a while. So, your initial case fee added to my long, rambling theory just there, along with the "Annoying New Twist" clause brought about by this new case will all be added up. I also may add later fees as the case unfolds. In fact, I can almost guarantee it.

I accept Moxons and Donuts, but I also accept most major forms of currency accepted around the Galaxy, including Zorkmids, Marsmids, Galards, Bakarets, and many others.

Anyway, I'm off now. I'll check in from time to time.

Ya rambled on for ages without actualy answering the question witch for this site is normal. But at least ya could have given mi half an answer(im writing this drunk, spelling mistakes not my fault)instead of talking about the song. The song came after the alphebet, not before as your impling

I'm not implying that the alphabet didn't exist before the song did. I'm implying that the current order of the alphabet was engineered for the song.

As I stated sometime during my rambling about the letter Thorn, the English alphabet has existed and permutated for quite some time now. As we don't have 27 letters, I'm currently attempting to track down Thorn so that I can get some decent answers, or at least an eye-witness response.


Just so you know, this Detective Agency is almost entirely a part of h2g2's RP community. As such, we deal more with RP fiction than fact, and tend to put style over substance, hence the long-rambling way that my posts are constructed here (a vague tribute/spoof to characters like Sam Spade, etc). You seem to have already gotten a few people on Ask H2G2 to ponder this question, and those really are the types of people that would best answer this question.

I'm planning on forwarding your query to the people at a little conversation pit called Lil's Atelier. The people there are generally knowledgeable and good at finding info on the fly, and sometimes get info faster than Ask H2G2. But while I ask 'em, I'm going to continue my silly little pursuit of Thorn, wherever that'll take me (probably to some nightmarish Sesame Street or Barney show).

See ya soon!

*A tall filing cabinet swings open and GL limps through. When he gets to the desk, he puts his left foot up on it.*

Affy, I seem to have stepped on a splinter, or something. Can you pull it out for me? I feel like the lion in that old fable( http://www.4literature.net/Aesop/Androcles_and_the_Lion/ ). Feel like playing Androcles?

*Notices the visitor.*

Oh, sorry. I didn't know you had someone else here.

Sure, let's see here....

*Fumbles around in his desk until he finds some tweezers*

Here, these should do the trick. Where were you when you stepped on this?

I was out back, by the hawthorne tree. It's going to have magnificent blooms this year, you know. I just went out for a moment and didn't bother putting on my shoes.

You know very well that you should avoid that thing unless you've transmogrified into a badger.

Yes, I know, but I wasn't very close. I'd forgotten about our minor modifications to it's genetics. Why we ever thought it would be fun to have it able to fire its thorns is beyond me.

It must've just seemed like a good idea at the time.

Come to think of it, though, we've thrown together a good deal of stuff that we really should've thought through first. I mean, if we excessively used alcohol or other mind altering substances then we'd have an excuse, but as it is there really isn't much explanation possible.

I guess it's just that once you have a cool idea and the means to make it happen, well, it's hard to resist doing it. Right away. Without thinking.

Anyway, thanks for pulling the thorn out of my foot. It feels much better. Oh, and you can keep it. I heard you were looking for one.

*Examines the Thorn*

Hmmmm....perhaps. However, this is more of a herbological thorn, rather than an alphabetical one. I'll keep this in mind, though with some directions from a customer at the Irv's Cafe, I was able to find Sesame Street at A2457272 and judging by the looks of it, if I can find Thorn anywhere then it'll be there.

Wow, that's a shiny new entry, isn't it? Something sinister about it, though. And Sesame Street seems too obvious a place to look for a Holistic Detective. I would think that a Holistic Detective would look, oh, I don't know, maybe in a bakery or something. Or maybe he would follow the next person that walked by.

Maybe, but I've gotten rusty over the years. Instead of following someone, I checked looked for new researchers among researchers who were online, and this was the first one that I saw. Wild coincidence. So coincidental that it simply has to be a lead.

Who was the first one?

vicecount. The guy who made that Sesame Street article.

Oh, I though you said you got the link to the Sesame Street page through a comment someone made at the Cafe.

Well, if you DID find it through a random following of new users, then it surely is a significant find. That article did have a sinister feel to it, though, so you had better make sure it isn't a one-way street.

Well, I went into the Cafe on business, and got directions to Sesame Street, you see. I didn't take the CLI Mini-UFO to their until after I knew of vicecount, though.

Ah, now I understand. Just went to Vice Count's page and noticed something I hadn't noticed before.

So, where does the investigation go from here? Are you going to open up a conversation with him?

I honestly don't have a clue, really. I'm thinking about it. But this is a back-burner story, really, so when I know what I want him to say, and (therefore) when I know what he will say, then I'll ask him.

So. Do *YOU* have any ideas for what I might want him to say?