The Letter Y

Episode notes

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy podcasters/writers David Christopher Bell and Tom Reimann (Gamefully Unemployed, ‘Fox Mulder Is A Maniac’ podcast) for a look at why the letter Y is secretly incredibly fascinating.

Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week’s bonus episode.

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LINKS FOR THE GUESTS:

• Gamefully Unemployed on Patreon
• Weird History (YouTube / Ranker)
• Tom Reimann’s page at 1-900-HOT-DOG
• Some More News (YouTube)
• “Kitten” by David Christopher Bell featured on The Black List

RESOURCES USED TO INFORM THE EPISODE’S LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

• native-land.ca
• U.S. Department Of Arts And Culture
• The True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland (Smithsonian)
• Mapping Manahatta: 10 Lenape sites in New York City (6sqft)

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Language Visible: Unraveling The Mystery Of The Alphabet From A To Z by David Sacks
• The SCHWA Sound! English Pronunciation Lesson (mmmEnglish on YouTube)
• The Phoenicians — 1500–300 B.C. (The Metropolitan Museum Of Art)
• The Roman conquest of Greece, in pictures (Oxford University Press blog)
• Cambridge Dictionary entry for upsilon
• Why e, the Transcendental Math Constant, Is Just the Best (Quanta Magazine) — this is the number “E” Alex references.
• YouTube upload of SNL’s “Celebrity Jeopardy!: French Stewart, Burt Reynolds, & Sean Connery”
• The Battle of Stamford Bridge (Historic UK)
• British Library resources on William the Conqueror
• What happened after Hastings? (Reading Museum)
• blog post “The Historical Blunder In Braveheart” by Laurie J. White — this is an extra source for what Tom references.
• Eth, thorn, and ash: they flunked the screen test for our alphabet (Stanford University’s “The Book Haven” blog)

Image of upsilon, drawn uppercase and lowercase:

Some examples of English words with vowels making a “schwa” sound, via mmmEnglish on YouTube:

Image of “yogh”, uppercase and lowercase:

Image of “thorn”, uppercase and lowercase: