Each letter in our Latin alphabet tells a story. But what about spaces? Or writing direction? Should we get rid of some letters, or could we even do with more? Here to answer all these questions is Dr Danny Bate, author of Why Q Needs U: A History of Our Letters and How We Use Them.
Timestamps
00:00 Start
00:44 Intros: Special letters
05:46 News: Spanish okay at World Cup?
09:30 News: Forgetting is helpful in language acquisition
21:18 News: Bluey in Yolŋu
25:41 Related or Not theme by Jo
27:21 Related or Not: prodigy, prodigal, and prodigious
34:19 Related or Not: vice, device, divide
43:09 Related or Not: gauntlet and gaunt
49:48 Interview with Danny Bate, author of Why Q Needs U
50:16 About Danny’s podcast: A Language I Love Is…
52:24 The Alphabet: greatest innovation since sexual reproduction
56:08 The case against boustrophedon
58:51 Letters flipped over time
01:02:40 Why are some letters more common than others?
01:06:14 Why does H get used in so many digraphs?
01:10:52 Thoughts on spelling reform
01:18:07 Why are L and R so squirrelly?
01:28:53 The evolution of spaces in written language
01:31:46 What letters can we get rid of?
01:35:15 Actually, no, we need a new letter
01:36:53 Communicating linguistic ideas to the public
01:44:02 Word of the Week: monoculture
01:53:43 Word of the Week: algae-TBQ agenda
02:00:15 Word of the Week: hobbylos
02:03:14 Word of the Week: tokenmaxxing
02:06:27 Word of the Week: Claudeonomics
02:11:21 The Reads
02:18:18 Outtakes: Back on our Bluey nonsense + On being a Dan
Listen to this episode
Video
@becauselangpod Our spelling mistakes are *fixing* English. New episode with Danny Bate, author of "Why Q Needs U" Get it in all the podcast places. https://becauselanguage.com/141-why-q-needs-u/ @bonnierbooks_uk ♬ original sound – Because Language
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This time, scores are based on how similar the lower case letters look to their upper case counterparts. Two points for exactly the same, one point for coming close, and no points for not very similar.
| Name | Two points | One point | No points | Score | Letters | Normalised |
| Luis | us | li | 6 | 4 | 1.50 | |
| sæ̃m | s | m | 3 | 2 | 1.50 | |
| Lucy | uc | ly | 6 | 4 | 1.50 | |
| O Tim | o | tim | 5 | 4 | 1.25 | |
| Lyssa | ss | ly | a | 6 | 5 | 1.20 |
| Nikoli | ko | ili | n | 7 | 6 | 1.17 |
| Wolfdog | woo | lf | dg | 8 | 7 | 1.14 |
| Linguistic C̷̛̤̰̳͉̺͕̋̚̚͠h̸͈̪̤͇̥͛͂a̶̡̢̛͕̰͈͗͋̐̚o̷̟̹͈̞̔̊͆͑͒̃s̵̍̒̊̈́̚̚ͅ | usccos | liiti | ngha | 17 | 15 | 1.13 |
| Chris L | cs | il | hr | 6 | 6 | 1.00 |
| LordMortis | oos | lmti | rdr | 10 | 10 | 1.00 |
| Kristofer | kso | itf | rer | 9 | 9 | 1.00 |
| Sonic Snejhog | socso | ij | nnehg | 12 | 12 | 1.00 |
| Kevin | kv | i | en | 5 | 5 | 1.00 |
| Andy from Logophilius | ooopus | yfmlili | andrgh | 19 | 19 | 1.00 |
| Tony | o | ty | n | 4 | 4 | 1.00 |
| John K | ok | j | hn | 5 | 5 | 1.00 |
| Xekri | xk | i | er | 5 | 5 | 1.00 |
| Becky | ck | y | be | 5 | 5 | 1.00 |
| Colleen | co | ll | een | 6 | 7 | 0.86 |
| Ignacio | co | ii | gna | 6 | 7 | 0.86 |
| Caitlin | c | itli | an | 6 | 7 | 0.86 |
| Yevaud | vu | y | ead | 5 | 6 | 0.83 |
| Keith | k | it | eh | 4 | 5 | 0.80 |
| Fiona | o | fi | na | 4 | 5 | 0.80 |
| Kathy | k | ty | ah | 4 | 5 | 0.80 |
| James | s | jm | ae | 4 | 5 | 0.80 |
| Elías | s | l | ea | 3 | 4 | 0.75 |
| Stan | s | t | an | 3 | 4 | 0.75 |
| Molly Dee | o | mlly | dee | 6 | 8 | 0.75 |
| Aldo | o | l | ad | 3 | 4 | 0.75 |
| Faux Frenchie | uxc | ffi | arenhe | 9 | 12 | 0.75 |
| Rosemary | os | my | rear | 6 | 8 | 0.75 |
| PharaohKatt | pok | tt | haraha | 8 | 11 | 0.73 |
| Whitney | w | ity | hne | 5 | 7 | 0.71 |
| Steele | s | tl | eee | 4 | 6 | 0.67 |
| Amy | my | a | 2 | 3 | 0.67 | |
| Mignon | o | mi | gnn | 4 | 6 | 0.67 |
| Sydney | s | yy | dne | 4 | 6 | 0.67 |
| Diego | o | i | deg | 3 | 5 | 0.60 |
| Laura | u | l | ara | 3 | 5 | 0.60 |
| Lance | c | l | ane | 3 | 5 | 0.60 |
| Nasrin | s | i | narn | 3 | 6 | 0.50 |
| Joanna | o | j | anna | 3 | 6 | 0.50 |
| Ayesha | s | y | aeha | 3 | 6 | 0.50 |
| Rach | c | rah | 2 | 4 | 0.50 | |
| Amir | mi | ar | 2 | 4 | 0.50 | |
| J0HNTR0Y | jty | hnr | 3 | 6 | 0.50 | |
| Hedvig | v | i | hedg | 3 | 6 | 0.50 |
| Canny Archer | cc | y | annarher | 5 | 11 | 0.45 |
| Ariaflame | iflm | araae | 4 | 9 | 0.44 | |
| Amanita | mit | aana | 3 | 7 | 0.43 | |
| Larry | ly | arr | 2 | 5 | 0.40 | |
| Nigel | il | nge | 2 | 5 | 0.40 | |
| Daryl | yl | dar | 2 | 5 | 0.40 | |
| Meredith | mit | eredh | 3 | 8 | 0.38 | |
| Manú | m | an | 1 | 3 | 0.33 | |
| Rodger | o | rdger | 2 | 6 | 0.33 | |
| Martha | mt | arha | 2 | 6 | 0.33 | |
| Daniel | il | dane | 2 | 6 | 0.33 | |
| gramaryen | my | graaren | 2 | 9 | 0.22 | |
| Helen | l | heen | 1 | 5 | 0.20 | |
| Andy B | y | andb | 1 | 5 | 0.20 | |
| Rene | rene | 0 | 4 | 0.00 | ||
| Ben | ben | 0 | 3 | 0.00 |
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Become a Patron!Show notes
FIFA reverses course and ends Spanish language press conference controversy
https://www.mundodeportivo.com/en/20260615/1004195355/fifa-reverses-course-and-ends-spanish-language-press-conference-controversy.html
Big thanks to Elisa for this story!
FIFA Reverses World Cup Language Policy After Hakimi Incident
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2026/06/320596/fifa-reverses-world-cup-language-policy-after-hakimi-incident/
@sophiasmithgaler Spanish speaking World Cup footballers were being told they…couldn’t speak Spanish? The clips went viral, audiences questioned why this would happen for any major language but especially one spoken by a host nation and…today FIFA announced a big change!
New study finds: Forgetting may be the secret to better AI language learning
https://www.mpi.nl/news/new-study-finds-forgetting-may-be-secret-better-ai-language-learning
Findings of the BabyLM Challenge: Sample-Efficient Pretraining on Developmentally Plausible Corpora
https://arxiv.org/html/2504.08165v1
Bluey: Dad Baby | ABC iView
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/bluey/series/2/video/CH1903Q019S00
Harden up, Pat! #Bluey
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1776237499824823
National NAIDOC Week
https://www.naidoc.org.au/about/naidoc-week
Bluey translated into an Indigenous language for the first time
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-17/bluey-launches-in-yolnu-matha-for-naidoc-week/106803138
Why Q Needs U: A History of Our Letters and How We Use Them, by Danny Bate
https://dannybate.com/book/
A history of Alphabet | kyokotomiyama
https://kyokotomiyama.wordpress.com/2016/11/15/a-history-of-alphabet/
Interpunct illustrated and explained
https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2008/06/interpunct-illustrated-and-explained.html
Praeneste fibula | Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praeneste_fibula
Runes: Do you prefer Elder or Younger Futhark? Has anyone tried to become fluent?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Viking/comments/101lhzw/runes_do_you_prefer_elder_or_younger_futhark_has/
Pauline Hanson says Australia ‘must be monocultural’ in National Press Club speech
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/17/pauline-hanson-national-press-club-address-speech-australia-ntwnfb
Pauline Hanson’s full speech at the National Press Club
https://thenightly.com.au/politics/pauline-hansons-full-speech-at-the-national-press-club–c-22444111
Hanson’s monoculture comments are from her three-step playbook and the Liberals played right into it
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-28/pauline-hanson-monoculture-multiculturalism-socceroos-words/106847648
Pauline Hanson wants a ‘monocultural’ society. But this version of Australia has never existed
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/24/australia-multicultural-history-never-monocultural-ntwnfbkw
Company owned by Trump donor won $1.7 million no-bid Reflecting Pool cleaning contract
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/company-trump-donor-cafaro-reflecting-pool-no-bid-contract/
A Meta employee created a dashboard so coworkers can compete to be the company’s No. 1 AI token user—and Zuckerberg doesn’t even rank in the top 250
https://fortune.com/2026/04/09/meta-killed-employee-ai-token-dashboard/
‘Ballmaxxing’: A potentially dangerous men’s health trend
https://www.nebraskamed.com/health/healthy-lifestyle/mens-health/ballmaxxing-a-potentially-dangerous-mens-health-trend
Transcript
Coming soon.