<p>An Australian businessman has invented a new letter of the English alphabet to replace the word 'the' because he thinks it is more efficient.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Paul Mathis from Melbourne has developed the replacement of the word 'the' - an upper-case 'T' and a lower-case 'h' bunched together so they share the upright stem.<br /><br />He has also developed an app that puts it in everyone's hand by allowing users to download an entirely new electronic keyboard with his symbol – which he pronounces "th".<br /><br />The keyboard also has a row of keys containing the 10 or 15 (depending on the version) most frequently typed words in English, 'The Age' reported.<br /><br />So far, Mathis who has opened more than 20 restaurants and hotels across Australia, has invested about AUD 75,000 in the project.<br /><br />"The word 'and' is only the fifth-most used word in English and it has its own symbol – the ampersand. Isn't it time we accorded the same respect to 'the'?" Mathis said.<br /><br />"Is this important? No. Is this going to change the world? Not really. But is it something that might be useful for people? I think so," he said.<br /><br />Typing the symbol will save time mainly in the context of Twitter.<br /><br />"The main functionality of this is in the texting space," Mathis said.<br /><br />"The Benedictine monks developed the modern version of the ampersand in the Middle Ages, when they were hand-copying religious texts," he said.<br /><br />"I'm not putting myself in the same league, but who knows - maybe in 500 years' time people will be amazed that there was a time when we didn't use 'th'," he added.<br /><br />Mathis has faced criticism on Twitter from people who claim he is attempting to trademark a symbol that has long been in use as part of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced "tshe", the letter represents the "ch" sound found in the word "chew"), the paper reported.<br /><br />Mathis concedes the likeness, but insists he was a long way down the road on his project before he became aware of it.</p>
<p>An Australian businessman has invented a new letter of the English alphabet to replace the word 'the' because he thinks it is more efficient.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Paul Mathis from Melbourne has developed the replacement of the word 'the' - an upper-case 'T' and a lower-case 'h' bunched together so they share the upright stem.<br /><br />He has also developed an app that puts it in everyone's hand by allowing users to download an entirely new electronic keyboard with his symbol – which he pronounces "th".<br /><br />The keyboard also has a row of keys containing the 10 or 15 (depending on the version) most frequently typed words in English, 'The Age' reported.<br /><br />So far, Mathis who has opened more than 20 restaurants and hotels across Australia, has invested about AUD 75,000 in the project.<br /><br />"The word 'and' is only the fifth-most used word in English and it has its own symbol – the ampersand. Isn't it time we accorded the same respect to 'the'?" Mathis said.<br /><br />"Is this important? No. Is this going to change the world? Not really. But is it something that might be useful for people? I think so," he said.<br /><br />Typing the symbol will save time mainly in the context of Twitter.<br /><br />"The main functionality of this is in the texting space," Mathis said.<br /><br />"The Benedictine monks developed the modern version of the ampersand in the Middle Ages, when they were hand-copying religious texts," he said.<br /><br />"I'm not putting myself in the same league, but who knows - maybe in 500 years' time people will be amazed that there was a time when we didn't use 'th'," he added.<br /><br />Mathis has faced criticism on Twitter from people who claim he is attempting to trademark a symbol that has long been in use as part of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced "tshe", the letter represents the "ch" sound found in the word "chew"), the paper reported.<br /><br />Mathis concedes the likeness, but insists he was a long way down the road on his project before he became aware of it.</p>