What if: The Letter "E" does not exist for the next 24 hours?

[Urabrask Revealed]

On the date 10/24/2019 at 8 am, CET, the letters "E" and "e" cease to exist worldwide for the following 24 hours. Words on non-digitial material with the letter in it are unreadable, programs which use "E" in some way lose every word that has it, people forget every word that has an "E" or "e" in it but try to replace it with the closest equivalent. For example, people who would yell "Help!", instead scream "Mayday!"

Would the human civilization survive the next 24 hours? Assume that non-latin languages lose their equivalent of "E" and "e" too.

 

[ShieldWife]

Calamity would follow from vanishing words in vital programs.

 

[Deleted member]

Would internet cutesy slang like ”lurv” for love still exist? This would be kind of fun, my natural tendency to very long and ornate sentences would actually be useful for once. Though I guess we would have to call the compressors at work “skids”.... But we do that sometimes anyway. Why did you choose E? I think the human race has an amazing ability for improvisational allegory so the main problem would be computers.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

Why did you choose E?

I've read somewhere that E is the most commonly used letter, and wanted to know what would happen if people had to work without it.

 

[Scottty]

I've read somewhere that E is the most commonly used letter, and wanted to know what would happen if people had to work without it.

Wi could manag without it for a whil, but it might tak a bit of gitting usd to.

Softwar that runs on intirpritd sourc cod rathr than compild cod would be mor of a problm.

 

[Erwin_Pommel]

[QUOT="Urabrask Rvaled, post: 22693, mmber: 44"]
On the dat 10/24/2019 at 8 am, CT, the lttrs "" and "" cas to xist worldwid for the following 24 hours. Words on non-digitial matrial with th lttr in it ar unradabl, programs which us "" in som way los vry word that has it, people forgt vry word that has an "" or "" in it but try to rplac it with the closst quivalnt. For xampl, popl who would yll "Hlp!", instad scram "Mayday!"

Would th human civilization surviv th nxt 24 hours? Assum that non-latin languags los their quivalnt of "" and "" too.
[/QUOT]

I think this occurs.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

I've read somewhere that E is the most commonly used letter, and wanted to know what would happen if people had to work without it.

It is; a lot of early cypher-analysis was based that. Get a large number of messages and do a statistical analysis of the most common letters and enough of the message becomes readable to get the rest. That's why transposition cyphers don't last too long. The reason why certain people were reputed to have sophisticated cyphers (Vatican, Society of Jesus) was that they spent a lot of time thinking up ways to crack the frequency loophole.

Connected with that was a study that methodically deleted letters from the English alphabet in an effort to determine how soon messages constructed with the reduced alphabet became unreadable. The answer obviously was "depends on which letters were deleted" (vowels apparently are eminently deletable apparently because they are a late addition to a written language) but the number of letters that could be deleted was larger than some of the participants had expected.

If anybody wants to retry this, one of the messages used was "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party." Make up a list of random letters and progressively delete them

 

[Vargas Fan]

The thread title becomes a bit awkward to read...