Back to previous page Asked and answered September 7, 2006 QUESTION: Is it true someone wrote a whole book about one-letter words? ANSWER: O, yes. And critics give it an A. Although in English there can be no more than 26 one-letter words, there are more than 1,000 definitions and uses for the 26. And that indeed fills a new book, "One-Letter Words: A Dictionary," by Craig Conley. And not a short book either. It's 272 pages by HarperCollins. To illustrate the variety, let's take I. In addition to its first-person meaning, I is a Roman numeral, the chemical symbol for iodine, a school grade meaning "incomplete," a type of beam or girder and a football formation. The fewest entries are for W, with 18. The most are for X, with 76. Among its meanings: X is a ray, a movie rating, the mark of a kiss -- or a spot, which X marks -- the symbol for multiplication and a sex chromosome. So now you might say: G, I C. By the Associated Press Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc. Back to previous page

©2006 Ted Weinstein Literary Management