{"id":19741,"date":"2020-09-04T14:34:36","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T14:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19741"},"modified":"2020-09-04T20:59:08","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T20:59:08","slug":"small-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19741","title":{"rendered":"Small Words"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In English there are only a few words that have just one letter:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a = the indefinite article &#8211; a letter<\/li>\n<li>I = the first person singular pronoun &#8211; I<\/li>\n<li>o = a blood type; a vocative particle &#8211; O, I see an A<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A number of other letters are used to represent whole words or parts of words in slang, and other flavours of informal English:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>B = babe, baby<\/li>\n<li>c = see &#8211; I c u (I see you)<\/li>\n<li>E = ecstasy<\/li>\n<li>G = gangster, gangsta; grand (1,000)<\/li>\n<li>k = okay; kilometer<\/li>\n<li>L = to lose, loss &#8211; catching an L (making a loss); loser<\/li>\n<li>p = pence &#8211; 10p = ten pence<\/li>\n<li>r = are &#8211; How r u? (How are you?)<\/li>\n<li>u = you<\/li>\n<li>v = very &#8211; v good (very good)<\/li>\n<li>x = kiss<\/li>\n<li>y = yes, why<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.urbandictionary.com\/\">Urban Dictionary<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>In Welsh there are actually quite a few one-letter words, some of which are homographs (written the same, but having different meanings):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a = who(m), which<\/li>\n<li>a = interrogative particle before a verb &#8211; A ddaeth y dyn? (Did the man come?)<\/li>\n<li>a = ah!<\/li>\n<li>a = and<\/li>\n<li>\u00e2 = with, by means of<\/li>\n<li>\u00e2 = as<\/li>\n<li>\u00e2 = he\/she\/it goes<\/li>\n<li>e(f) = he, him, it (South Wales)<\/li>\n<li>i = to, for<\/li>\n<li>o = from, of, out of<\/li>\n<li>o = oh!<\/li>\n<li>o = he, it (North Wales)<\/li>\n<li>w\/\u0175 = ooh!<\/li>\n<li>y = the<\/li>\n<li>y = relative particle &#8211; Canol y dref (town centre \/ centre of the town)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Welsh &#8211; it&#8217;s not all long words!<\/p>\n<p>In Swedish there are a few single-letter words:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00e5 = oh!<\/li>\n<li>\u00e5 = small river, stream<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/%C3%85,_Sweden\">\u00c5<\/a> = a village in Norrk\u00f6ping municipality, \u00d6sterg\u00f6tland, Sweden<\/li>\n<li>\u00e0 = at, or &#8211; \u00e0 femtio kronor (at 50 kronor)<\/li>\n<li>i = in, at, into<\/li>\n<li>\u00f6 = island<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/%C3%85,_Sweden\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/%C3%96,_Sweden\">\u00d6<\/a> = a locality in \u00c5nge Municipality, V\u00e4sternorrland County, Sweden<\/li>\n<li>u = ugh! ooh!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>How about in other languages?<\/p>\n<p><em>This was inspired by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/polygotcommunity\/permalink\/2684164665135622\">post on the Polyglots Facebook group about single letter words in Swedish<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In English there are only a few words that have just one letter: a = the indefinite article &#8211; a letter I = the first person singular pronoun &#8211; I o = a blood type; a vocative particle &#8211; O, I see an A A number of other letters are used to represent whole words [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,10,67,77,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-language","category-swedish","category-welsh","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19741"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19761,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19741\/revisions\/19761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}