"Letter censorship" stories

[ISNorden]

I've known of at least three Sesame Street bits (on TV and/or in books) that share the same basic plot:

1. The central character dislikes one letter of the alphabet and tries to abolish that letter.
2. When the CC gets his/her wish, important objects and/or people disappear (sometimes by magic, sometimes by followers who obey the CC's orders and haul the offending things away).
3. The CC realizes that the banished letter is important after all, and reverses his/her original decision. Sometimes the once-hated letter becomes a new favorite; more often, the CC simply decides to tolerate it.

That plot outline resembles the one in James Thurber's book The Wonderful O; the villain of that story hates the letter because it reminds him of his mother's death (she had gotten stuck in a porthole and drowned when the villain tried to free her). He takes over an island, abolishing nearly everything whose name contains an O anywhere--not just at the beginning, as a Sesame Street villain might do. He allows a few necessities like food, crops, tools...but otherwise, the islanders are forced to speak O-less English and rename things cleverly to avoid the ban. I wonder whether any of the old CTW writers had used Thurber's story as an inspiration; most recently, Cookie Monster seems to think like a character in that book. (Prairie Dawn happens to be wet from the shower when Cookie needs a W-word, or yawning after he needs a Y-word and wakes Prairie up.)

 

[DTF]

lol, that's clever. I had never read that book, but it sounds funny.

I did something of the opposite in a humor column for our college newspaper once. I noted how little X and Q and Z are used, and advocated putting silent letters willy nilly in words just to increase the distribution and make it more equal.

Then there was the bachelor party speech I gave (gnave) to a friend a number of years back whose last name begins with "gn," both of which are pronounced like in "gnu." Ever word beginning with g or n became a "gn" word, and by the it had gone to every g or n in a word replaced with a "gn" and finally a couple times just a random "gn" appearing.

"Here's wishing you a gnreat marriage as you gnet ready to cognjoign your gnuptials."

You don't have to have R-rated stuff to have fun at a bachelor party - my friends and I have proven that