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Ћ is the Serbian Cyrillic character Tshe, which has been nicknamed "The Tap" by Australian restaurateur Paul Mathis,[1] and used by him as a symbol for the English word 'the.'
Creation
editMathis' decision to abbreviate 'the' as Ћ came from the fact that the word 'the,' despite being the most used word in the English language (British English),[2] and indeed, in American English,[3], had no symbol, unlike 'and' (which has the ampersand), which Mathis cited as being the fifth most used letter in the English language,[1] claiming that it is in 80% of all paragraphs.[4] Mathis said that he created 40 symbols, before deciding on Ћ, as "it is the only one of them that is instantly recognizable as the word 'the'.[1]
Mathis' symbol for 'the' is the same as the Serbian Cyrillic letter Ћ (Tshe), but Mathis says that this was a co-incidence, and that he only discovered Tshe part of the way through his design process.[5]
Usage
editMathis has developed a mobile app which features a keyboard that contains Ћ.[6][7][8][9] It is available on Google Play, but has attracted little interest.[10]
Mathis promotes the symbol with texting and Twitter in mind. He said "The main functionality of this [the symbol] is in the texting space".[5]
Criticism
editMathis has been criticized for claiming to create a letter which is too similar, indeed, identical to Tshe, a letter in the Serbian alphabet. He has also been criticized for ignoring the existing Middle English symbol þͤ for 'the' (a thorn with a superscript), and its Early Modern form yͤ (as in Ye Olde).[11]
References
edit- ^ a b c "Ћ letter changing how we type". BBC News. 11 July 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ "The OEC: Facts about the language". Oxford Dictionaries. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ "Word frequency data". Corpus of Contemporary American English. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ Kennedy, John (11 July 2013). "One man's crusade to create a symbol for 'The'". Silicon Republic. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ a b Quinn, Karl (5 July 2013). "What Th? One man's quest for a symbol solution". The Age. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ "Restaurateur invents new symbol for the word 'the'". ITV News. 10 July 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ "The New The". The Globe and Mail. 9 July 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ Alexander, Harriet (9 July 2013). "New letter for 'The' - Ћ - invented". The Telegraph. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ Subramanian, Courtney (11 July 2013). "Why The Deserves a Symbol All Of Its Own". Time. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ "THE Keyboard Top 15". Google Play. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ Howse, Christopher (10 July 2013). "Paul Mathis's new letter: The the or not the the, that is the question". The Telegraph. Retrieved 11 July 2013.