It may come as a surprise that the English language has over the centuries dropped as many as ten letters from its arsenals, bringing its strength down to 26 from 36.

The video above, by Gregory Austin McConnell, goes into the details. Did you, for instance, know of the “long s”, which looked like “f”? No wonder it was junked. Then there was the ampersand or “&”, which was considered a letter in its own right.

Fortunately, it would be very difficult to use that 36-letter version of English now, because the letters in question can at best be written by hand. Typefaces have eliminated most of them, and you will not be able to find many of them on your keyboard, no matter what combination of keys you try.

Let’s just say words like “subpoena”, “aeon”, “thought”, “that” and even “and” would have been somewhat differently had we hung on to those ten letters.