R, r November, the Alphabet Project

R, r: From the Canaanite resh “head.” The Greek rho (P) faced the opposite direction. The Romans added a leaning-post under the nose to prevent confusion with P. In the lowercase R, the entire bottom half of the face is amputated.



real: Almost incredibly, this monosyllable is a compound. From the Latin re “thing” and –al “real.” Real is not real by itself. It must be a real thing.

redundant: Needless repetition, as in “bare naked.” It would be as redundant listing redundancies here as listing clichés under the heading cliché would be cliché. From the Latin, redundans, “overflow,” the unda meaning “water in motion, wave,” whence inundation, undulate, surround, and abound, but not under which seems to come ultimately from the Proto Indo-European andher.

Coming November 30th, the RETURN OF THE STOOPID CONTEST