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澳大利亚墨尔本的餐馆老板保罗•马西斯最近创造出一个新字母“Ћ”来代替单词“the”, 如今他正在游说苹果公司让他在iTunes商店里推广关于新字母“Ћ”的应用软件。马西斯表示，他的发明并不重要，更不会改变世界，但是对大众来说很实用。马西斯说，“the”是英语中使用频率最高的单词，缩减成一个字母将会使人们在使用社交网站和打字时更加快捷。英语中最常用的前五个单词是the, be, to, of, and，其中排在第五名的“and”已有符号“&”来表示，“&”有时直接被当成英文字母表中的第27个字母。
马西斯30年来在澳大利亚各地开了20多家餐馆和酒店，人送外号“麦得斯”（希腊神话中佛里吉亚的国王，能点物成金）。这次马西斯投资38,000澳元（约合人民币21.4万元）开发这款应用软件，虽然之前遭到苹果公司拒绝，他仍在努力改变他们的决定。
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Paul Mathis, a restaurateur from Melbourne who owns a string of dining establishments, has designed the letter “Ћ” – representing the word “the”. |
Paul Mathis, a restaurateur from Melbourne who owns a string of dining establishments, has designed the letter “Ћ” – representing the word “the”. Now he is lobbying Apple to allow him to promote his app, which features the new character, in its iTunes store.
“Is this important?” he said, in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald. “No. Is this going to change the world? Not really.
“But is it something that might be useful for people? I think so.”
Mr Mathis, who has opened more than 20 restaurants and hotels across Australia in a career spanning three decades, is known as “Mr Midas” for his ability to create booming venues. He currently owns and runs six restaurants in the city.
Yet in a move to branch out of the food business, the entrepreneur has invested AUS $38,000 (£23,500) in the new app, but has so far been rejected by Apple. He is hoping he can change their mind, pointing out that reducing the word “the” – the most used word in the English language – to one character would be helpful for Twitter and swift typing.
“The word 'and’ is only the fifth-most used word in English and it has its own symbol – the ampersand,” said Mr Mathis. “Isn’t it time we accorded the same respect to 'the’?”
The top five most commonly used words in the English language are said to be: the, be, to, of, and 'and’. The ampersand has at times been used as the 27th letter of the English alphabet.
“The Benedictine monks developed the modern version of the ampersand in the Middle Ages, when they were hand-copying religious texts.
“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’.”
(Source: The Telegraph)
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（中国日报网英语点津 实习生 张益欣， 编辑 Helen ）
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