In an attempt to dissuade students from scaling Tech Tower and other buildings to steal Ts, the administration has decided to abolish the 20th letter of the alphabet on all official Institute correspondence. Tech administrators believe that removing this letter completely will help balance the budget in this financial crisis by the immense savings on printing costs, both in terms of paper and ink and toner.
“The letter ‘t’ is the most commonly used consonant in the English language,” said Tracy Tidlow, Dean of Alphabetical Affairs. “We allocate about $150,000 a month to printing costs associated with printing this letter,” Tidlow said.
The administration is also saving money due to a reduction of paper use in the Library. With the abolition of the letter “t”, Tech is making significant strides in becoming environmentally friendly.
“Eliminating this letter reduces the amount of paper used by 10 percent and cuts $30,000 from the Library’s budget,” Tidlow said.
With only 15 percent of the Tech population able to write on a tenth grade level, administrators believed getting rid of this letter would bring the academic focus back on engineering.
“We know Tech is a hard school,” said Timothy Teterson, Director of Engineering Affairs. “Our students have been struggling in our English classes…we want to help our students, so we’re trying to shift away from those courses that prove to be particularly difficult to a majority of students. Writing in a coherent way is one of those subjects we are trying to stay away from,” Teterson said.
The Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts is a heavy critic of the proposed abolition.
“How will my students write papers?” said Tamantha Talsh, professor of International Affairs. “What’s the point of the Ivan Allen College if our students are unable to use one of the most important letters in the alphabet?” Talsh said.
Beginning next week, the Technique will adopt the Institute policy of abolishing the letter t and will be omitting it from all publications. To get used to the new style, here is an example paragraph:
“A ech, here are few s uden s who will be able o read his ar icle, bu i will save he echnique rillions in he long run on prin ing cos s and will save lo s of ink, which hur s he environmen . For more informa ion con ac he Dean of Alphabe ical Affairs.”