The letter E used to be the most-used vowel in the English language. I just used it a dozen times in the previous sentence. In fact, E didn’t just beat the other vowels, but all the consonants, too, to become the most-used letter in our alphabet — until the last decade, when some businesses decided to get along without it.

First there were websites called Tumblr and Flickr. Then apps named Grindr and Blendr. Then Trackd and Smashd. There’s one for finding activities for your children called Kidzexplor.

It’s not easy coming up with a name for a product, particularly one that hasn’t been used before, but I detest the reduced use of the letter E in many of these cases. However, you might notice that these outfits haven’t dropped E completely. It’s still okay in some places, like the middle of Blendr or Kidzexplor. Then there’s this low-tech example I found the other day which dropped its second E, becoming unique enough to register as a trademark…



At least the company didn’t call it Singl Serv. Someone else registered that trademark many years ago, but it must have looked wrong to enough people that the owner let it lapse.

On the other hand, it makes the name a little easier to use in a Tweet — whr vry charactr mattrs.