The Most Stylish Letter of 2009!

Every May 19th a select pool of typographers, etymologists, linguists, poets, English professors, scrabble players, and people like me is narrowed down to an elite committee of judges to rank the letters of the American Alphabet according to their stylishness, and award the Most Stylish Letter of the Year Award*. In recent years the Most Stylish Letter of the Year Committee (MSLYC) has only consisted of one judge, due to the lack of responsiveness and heavy scheduling burdens of others chosen to sit on the committee. 2009 was no different for the MSLYC, and I am still the only one judging the Most Stylish Letter of the Year, but that hasn't changed the quality of this year's top contestants.

Cue (Q) and Ef (F) both showed promising early leads in the 1st rounds of judging, and some pundits had projected top five finishes for the Consonants. However, during some negative campaign ads the Q camp really worked hard to paint F as the demoralizing grade of failure in the classroom, and even used phrases such as "That's Effed Up" during rallies, subtly reminding the crowd of what F has stood for in the past. Strangely enough, that phrase increased F's popularity among certain demographics, including teenagers, sailors, and anyone who has seen "The Boondock Saints." Q lost considerable support when an F campaign spokesman spun the ads as "attack ads." The comment that really left Q in a quagmire came at a phonics fundraiser when F said, "What's up with the dependency on 'you' (U)? There's nothing stylish about that [...] the neediness is just pathetic." The slurring ended with less-than-lowercase ratings for both letters.

The vowel campaigns were unsually strong this year across the board, from A, E, I, O, to U, and employing a new slogan this year: "Always Y." Why (Y) fought fiercely to avoid being labeled a "flip-flopper" by either the Vowels or Consonants. Y's campaign also made great use of it's descender, the part of the lowercase letter that extends below the "v" where the two lines meet. O has been the most successful of the vowels, as a six time Top Ten Finisher, consistently campaigning on simplicity and pure curvature. However, this year Cee (C) and Ess (S) borrowed the approach, and left O way behind in almost every poll. Not even the corporate endorsement from Google ("O puts the 'ooooo' in Google") seemed to help. Without any particularly creative ideas to gain attention, O completely floundered this year, which left E and Y as the top contenders for the Vowels.

At the very top, competing for first place, Zee (Z) and Ecks (X) put on the most entertaining of letter duels. The two former-champion Consonants have been trading titles for the last nineteen years of this competition, with twelve wins for Z and seven for X. At the last debate between the two nominees it was no surprise to see the Xylophone and Xena: Warrior Princess jokes again. X responded without missing a beat, pretending to snore, "Zzzzzz... haven't you got any new material?" Z bantered back immediately, "Zilch."

So without any further ado, it's time to announce the The Most Stylish Letter of 2009...



X!

On behalf of the MSLYC, I'd like to thank all twenty-six of our entrees this year, and invite them all to return for next year's competition. Congratulations, Ecks!

*The May 19th contest was first founded to commemorate both the beheading of Henry VIII's second wife Anne Boleyn in 1536, and John Quincy Adam's signing of the Tariff of 1828, protecting US wool manufacturers. You can learn more at the following link: the following link.

Writing is good.

Writing is supposed to be therapeutic, or a release of sorts. It allows for a person to gather his or her thoughts, edit them, check if they are grammatically correct, and even use unnecessary large words to say something rather simple. But, sometimes we just don't feel it.

You can write when you are not in the mood, but rarely does it prove fruitful. But if fruits are not what interest you, then I suppose it might be worthwhile to do it anyway. Such is the case for me today. I'm writing about writing. You might think that that would indicate that I have a dearth of material. You would be wrong. I could be writing about the US-China space race, the recent Palestinian-Israeli conflict, John Travolta's son, the EU's new President Vaclav Klaus, or about how I'm reading the sixth book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, but I'm not.

I'm writing about writing. 

It can be entertaining (one of the main reasons I do it) or it can be therapeutic, as I mentioned earlier. Writing is essential for speaking well, reasoning well, and making sense of the world. However, while writing often helps the writer make sense of the world and his own thoughts on the world, the world still remains quite unpredictable, strange, and inexplicable to those who do not write, as well as it does for those who do write and do not agree with you. However, that is no reason to give up on writing. 

As you increase your vocabulary and reasoning skills through writing, you inevitably must embrace new theories, ideas, styles, and roots. While doing this of course your mind hypothetically or even quite literally expands and allows you more room to find room for other people's ideas, cultures, styles, and foundations. This newfound attitude of openness however does not mean that a person need throw out all of their initial pretenses for ones that may seem more erudite and evolved. But, what it does mean is that a writer must be more willing to entertain and consider opposing views, and ideas. That consideration in and of itself is progress.

Yay for progress! And, yay for writing.