One-Letter Words, a Dictionary (6 page)

E IN PRINT AND PROVERB

1. (phrase)
This may be inscribed in a church under the two tablets of the Ten Commandments:
“PRSVR PRFCT MN VR KP THS PRCPTS TN. The Vowel E Supplies the Key.”

2. (phrase)
To give the big E
means to brush off or ignore. The
E
originally stood for
elbow.

3. (in literature)
“E, candor of steam and of tents,
/Lances of proud glaciers, white kings, Queen-
Anne’s-lace shivers.”
—Arthur Rimbaud, “Vowels”

4. (in literature)
French author Georges Perec wrote an entire book,
La Disparition,
without using the letter
E.
This book was translated into English, also without the
E,
under the title
A Void.

5. (in literature)
“The peninsular landscape is full of contrasts, paradoxes, and transformations.
The most prominent elements on the horizon are forever silent, while smaller outgrowths have a profound resonance. More amazing, though, is how proximity to an E can actually transform an object into something entirely different. (Luckily, as my name is Sam, I remained the same.) I have sketched a rough map of the terrain, but have yet to fill in the details. I’m in no hurry, as the landscape of E will remain forever etched in my memory.”
—Craig Conley,
The Workbook of One-Letter Words

6. (in literature)
The title of a seven-minute Canadian animated film directed by Bretislav Pojar.
A giant statue of the letter “E” arrives in the park.
One man sees it as “B”; they are preparing to cart him off to the loony bin when a doctor arrives and determines the man needs glasses. Then the king
arrives; he also sees “B.” He tries on the glasses, sees “E,” and pins a medal on the doctor then has his goon squad come and bash on everyone’s head until they too see “B.”
—Anonymous

7. (in literature)
“‘That’s half of the Electric Palace symbol,’ Cal said. The Electric Palace was an electronic store in Odyssey. ‘The E is missing, but that’s it.’”
—Marshall Younger,
Mysteries in Odyssey #1:
Case of the Mysterious Message

8. (in literature)
“
E is the foundations, the pillar, the console, and the architrave, all architecture in a single letter.”
—Victor Hugo, quoted in
ABZ
by Mel Gooding.

9. (in popular usage)
“E-nough already!
The ‘E’ has come to be the favored letter in the e-world of Silicon Valley. Have they forgotten about the other 25 perfectly good characters of the alphabet? Let us start with the vowels that have been left to collect dust as their compatriot has made its meteoric rise to fame. What of ‘A’—was this not your first vowel, bringing to mind fond childhood memories of ABCs and 123s? What of ‘I’—that character that embodies the self and so much more? What of ‘O’—which is in itself a perfect exclamation of any and all emotions?
What of ‘U’—counterpart to ‘I’ that gives it balance and brings community? And sometimes ‘Y’—ever questioning and pushing the boundaries? Does not the power of the ‘E’ pale when placed next to the stunning expansiveness of the other vowels? We do not seek the demise of our friend ‘E,’ but merely want to put it in its place, and provide an environment in which all the other letters have room to grow and flourish.
—Anton Vowl, The Society for the Preservation of the Other 25 Letters of the Alphabet

10.
n.
A written representation of the letter.
“Make lots of Es,” she urged them. “E is one of the most important letters there is.” Mrs. Michaels wrote the letter E on five different little pieces of paper.
—Johanna Hurwitz,
E Is for Elisa

11.
n.
A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter.

FROM ONE TO FIVE

12.
n.
One piece of Styrofoam packing material (in the shape of an E).

13.
n.
In England, the second-class Lloyd’s rating for the quality of a merchant ship.

14.
n.
One of four cardinal points on a compass
(abbreviation for East).

15.
n.
The fifth in a series.

LEVELS OF ACHIEVEMENT

16.
n.
A U.S. government award (usually a pennant bearing an E, symbolizing excellence) given to an industrial organization.

17.
n.
A grade in school indicating “excellent.”
The grading system used during most of the period before 1928 would appear confusing when compared to what is used today. For many years, students were given four possible grades: E for excellent, G for good, F for fair, and P for poor.
—Gerald F. De Jong,
From Strength to Strength: A History of
Northwestern, 1882–1982

18.
n.
One graded with an E.

MUSIC

19.
n.
A written or printed representation of a musical note E.
He stayed for the second encore—an otherwise inspiring version of
Finlandia,
sunk by the incapacity of the aforementioned hornist, Mr. Kelleher, to hit a good E-flat.
—Brooks Hansen,
Perlman’s Ordeal

20.
n.
A string, key, or pipe tuned to the note E.

21.
n.
The fifth section in a piece of music.
Beginning with the letter E, that is, the main section of the first movement [of Nikolai Sidelnikov’s symphony
The Duels
], the series is a kind of sound
“matrix” consisting of thirteen sounds, where twelve are changed and the thirteenth is a “random one” which introduces an element of free development.
—M. Lobanova,
Musical Style and Genre: History and Modernity

22.
n.
The third note in a C-major musical scale.

MISCELLANEOUS

23.
n.
The fifth letter of the alphabet.
It was a promiscuous, fawning surd, continually merging with its neighboring consonants (“R” in particular), confirming Lemprière’s view of [E] as a perdifious little hieroglyph.
—Lawrence Norfolk,
Lemprière’s Dictionary
What is the beginning of the end, the end of the infinite, and the beginning of eternity? Answer: the letter e.
—Mark Barrenechea,
Software Rules: How the Next Generation of Enterprise Applications
Will Increase Strategic Effectiveness

24.
n.
Any spoken sound represented by the letter.
The sound vibration of the vowel E means “reflection, reflectivity, relationship, placing, placement, grid, mirror, echo.”
—Joseph E. Rael,
Tracks of
Dancing Light: A Native American Approach to
Understanding Your Name

25.
n.
Something having the shape of an E.
He had decided on the “E” shape for the building to keep it narrow enough to maximize the efficient use of natural light and because, had it run end to end in a line, the amount of floor space required would have made the building too long.
—Vicki Boatright,
The Panama Canal Review

26.
n.
A Roman numeral for 250.

27.
n.
Something arbitrarily designated E
(e.g., a person, place, or other thing).

28.
n.
A shoe width size
(narrower than EE, wider than D).

29.
n.
(logic)
The notation of a universal negative statement,
such as “no plants are mammals.” In categorical logic, the square of opposition describes the relationship between the universal affirmative
A,
the universal negative
E,
the particular affirmative
I,
and the particular negative
O.

30.
n.
(mathematics)
The natural number
e,
used as the base for natural logarithms and with applications in problems of population growth and radioactive decay.

31.
n.
The heaviest weight of sandpaper available.
[T]he letter E denotes the heaviest [weight of paper used].
—Bruce E. Johnson,
The Wood Finisher

SCIENTIFIC MATTERS

32.
n.
A vitamin (tocepherol).
Vitamin E is a key player in the body’s defense system. An antioxidant, it protects the lungs, nervous system, skeletal muscle, and the eye’s retina from damage by free radicals (cell-damaging chemicals).
It also protects cell membranes and is believed to slow aging of cells. It helps form red blood cells and protects them from being destroyed. It may also reduce the risk of heart disease by protecting against atherosclerosis (the buildup of fat in the arteries), but this has not yet been proved conclusively…. Vitamin E is found in vegetable oils, nuts, wheat germ and whole-wheat products, egg yolks, and green leafy vegetables.
—American Medical Association

33.
n.
(chemistry)
The symbol for the element einsteinium in the periodic table.

34.
n.
(physics)
The fundamental unit of charge
e,
originally measured by Robert Millikan in 1917, was later refined through the discovery of the relationship between the Avogadro’s constant
N
and the Faraday constant
F.

35.
n.
(biology)
Glutamate,
an amino acid.

36.
n.
A layer of the ionosphere,
as in the “E layer.”
This part of the ionosphere is located just above the
D-layer at an altitude of 90–130km. This layer can only reflect radio waves up to about 5MHz. It has a negative effect on 27MHz, due to absorption of radio waves above 5MHz. It develops shortly after sunset, and disappears a few hours after sunset.
Maximum ionization is reached around midday.
—WWDX Propagation College

37.
n.
The numerical value of pi.
Cajori writes that “perhaps the earliest use of a single letter to represent the ratio of the length of a circle to its diameter” occurs in 1689 in Mathesis enucleata by J. Christoph Sturm, who used e for 3.14159.
—Jeff Miller, “Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols”

38.
n.
A number whose hyperbolic logarithm is equal to 1,
adopted by Leonhard Euler in 1736.
Why did he choose the letter e? There is no general consensus. According to one view, Euler chose it because it is the first letter of the word exponential.
More likely, the choice came to him naturally as the
first “unused” letter of the alphabet, since the letters a, b, c, and d frequently appear elsewhere in mathematics. It seems unlikely that Euler chose the letter because it is the initial of his own name, as occasionally been suggested: he was an extremely modest man and often delayed publication of his own work so that a colleague or student of his would get due credit. In any event, his choice of the symbol e, like so many other symbols of his, became universally accepted.
—Eli Maor, quoted in Jeff Miller, “Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols”