Plinky says, “There are 26 letters in the English language, and we need every single one of them. Want proof? Choose a letter and write a blog post without using it.”

An homage to you without actually utilizing you? Alright then. Here we go.

Without you, my dear letter, we would have no plural anything. True, there are the kind of plural, like deer and aircraft, that don’t need you to prove more than one of them. And the kind that change into an entirely different word when there are more than one, like bacterium becoming bacteria or child turning into children, but generally, we need you to talk about more than merely one.

Without you, our 19th letter, the upturned comma denoting owner and property wouldn’t mean a thing. No one would know which individual, item or group owned what. I cannot write, “Bridget’_ dog Phillip.” It would have to be “Phillip, the dog of Bridget.”

Without you, in general, everything would occur in an over and done with way. Hardly anything would be in the here and now. I could not declare, “Bridget own_ her dog, Phillip.” Phillip would have to be owned, which could imply that maybe Phillip were no longer around or that Phillip were not currently owned by anyone. Poor Phillip.

Without you, from my point of view, people other than me cannot be. I can utter, “I am,” but when talking of another party, I cannot proclaim, “Phillip i_” or even the grammatical way to denote a preceding event, “Phillip wa_.” Not to mention that the female pronoun, akin to he, would be gone altogether.

On top of all of that, you have a very lovely form with a curve here and another there. You are delightful to behold, number 19.

A language without you would not be very functional at all. We really cannot do without you. I could not write the title of my blog. I cannot even utter my own name.

Love,

Goldfi_h