Letter perfect

The letters of the English alphabet are more than just parts of words. Letters can also represent ideas, chemical elements, even numbers. See if you can figure out which letter goes with each of the following descriptions.

1. Roman numeral for 100 and an abbreviation for a temperature scale.

2. A wider-than-average shoe size.

3. The victory sign used by the Allies in World War II.

4. Launch time for a rocket.

5. Symbol for the British pound sterling.

6. A unit of computer storage capacity (two answers are possible here!).

7. Multiplication sign; it also means "by" in measurements.

8. A mediocre motion picture.

9. A force exerted on a body at rest on Earth.

10. The Roman numeral for one and the word for ego.

11. An indefinite constant number in math; the symbol for nitrogen.

12. The lowest grade in school.

Nancy M. Kendall

ANSWERS

(1) C (C for Celsius); (2) D; (3) V; (4) T (As in: "T minus 39 minutes and counting...."); (5) L (The L has a short line bisecting its ascender to denote British currency); (6) K (For 'kilobytes'; most newer computers now use G for 'gigabytes'); (7) X; (8) B, as in 'a B movie'; (9) G (G-force, or gravity); (10) I; (11) N; (12) F.

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor