類似「&」一樣用「?」代替「the」是個好主意嗎？為什麼？

12-09

Paul Mathis has a problem - the amount of time we waste typing out THE, the most frequently used word in the English language. So he has invented a new symbol for use on our keyboards: ?. A combination of T and H - and dubbed the "tap" because of its shape - Paul hopes the letter will make typing more efficient. He told BBC Radio 5 live"s Up All Night, "I"m not about changing the word "the" - I"m simply enhancing it." ... via BBC News - ? letter changing how we type

If you"re asking, would people normally recognize ? as a "the", then I don"t think so. As a native English speaker, I"ve never seen that symbol before and I would have no idea what it means.

If you"re asking is it a good idea that people use ? to represent "the" in the future, then I"d make the argument that it would cause writing to look very dissonant and difficult to read. Just take a look,

"Jill and I went to the library, and then to the bakery."
"Jill I went to ? library, then to ? bakery."

Language already abstracts ideas so that a reader must decode a word to understand the idea. It does the reader no service to have to decode a symbol into the word and then the word into the idea.

The ampersand works because it is sparsely used in specific typographical contexts, such as on a poster.

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EDIT:

After listening to the interview on BBC, I"ll add that I think it"s a reasonable context to use it in texts and instant messages, instead of essays. People already use all sorts of shorthands online so I think it"s easier to accept in that context.

Now my question is, how do I type that?

這麼二的問題。。。可以打出來，所以能很方便的替代and，?你怎麼打出來？什麼？用word，這tmd的方便嗎？

?, ?（稱呼為 че, tshe）是一個塞爾維亞語使用的西里爾字母。

——維基百科。

這個字母已經被用了。再拿它表示the是不合適的。
而且還很容易跟約化普朗克常數混淆。

『and』有並列，連接的意思，用特殊符號有一定道理，而且常用來和『or』作區分。但是『the』只是一個冠詞，用符號好像只是單獨圖省事。
一般寫長篇文章，甚至普通句子時，我很少用『@』，『』等符號（特別是用電腦時）。只有在留notes或者寫summary的時候比較常用簡寫，而一般在這種時候，『the』都是被省略的。

所以，沒必要。

如果你非得在寫完整的文章的時候用『the』，一整篇文章這麼多，如果只有幾個『the』用符號，你讓其他的『the』怎麼想！如果所有的『the』都用符號代替，你讓讀文章的人怎麼想！！

不好-_-||因為傳統鍵盤上沒有這個按鍵……

為什麼是那個子母呢（而不是！@#￥%……），而且在不複製的情況下我不知道怎麼能方便的把那個符號打出來。如果把the都換成?，明顯不美觀；而不一樣，一般都是放在中間的，the都是放在前面的

我只想知道這個符號怎麼打出來

簡化的目的是為了方便，比如你說的，或是常用國內常用的3Q，國外常用的thk，亦或是用2代表to，用4代表for等等，這一切都是閑聊或是不正規場合為了簡便所採用的替代，但是
?，不得不說，就像樓上的Brian兄問的，這個該怎麼打出來呢？鍵盤上沒有快捷鍵導致打出這個符號並不能讓人感覺到任何簡便，反而複雜了

挺好玩的

我覺得不怎麼好，，我到現在都不知道這個符號在哪，至少在鍵盤上不能找到

那是你沒學過數學，各種亂七八糟難寫難辨的符號還嫌不多麼？