Book excerpt: The unknown history of letters For as long as any letter could remember, Vowels and Consonants had been enemies. U without N? Q without U? Mpssh! you say. Yet once, long ago, P's and Q's minded their p's and q's, and though U and I deserved not one iota of respect. For their part, Vowels knew only that the dot on the youngest i was far moe important than the most capital W. And so they came to wage a fierce war to prove who were the better letters. But as S's outflank E's and O's surround H's, an enemy of all the alphabet appers on the horizon--one which neither Vowels or Consonants can conquer alone. In this hilarious look at the hidden life of letters, Priscilla and Whitney Turner reveal how sworn enemies become allies and discovered what you and I now take for granted: that the pen is mightier than the swrd.