Shavian alphabet Shavian alphabet The Shavian alphabet (also known as the Shaw alphabet) is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonetic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of conventional spelling. It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Shaw set three main criteria for the new alphabet: it should be (1) at least 40 letters; (2) as "phonetic" as possible (that is, letters should have a to phonemes); and (3) distinct from the Latin alphabet to avoid the impression that the new spellings were simply "misspellings". The Shavian alphabet consists of
The Lady with a Fan (Velázquez) The Lady with a Fan (Velázquez) The Lady with a Fan is a major oil painting by the Spanish court painter Diego Velázquez. It depicts a woman wearing a black lace veil on her head and a dark dress with a low-cut bodice. On the basis of its place in Velázquez's stylistic development, the portrait is thought to have been painted between 1638 and 1639. It is now in the Wallace Collection in London. "The Lady with a Fan" is an enigmatic portrait. Although most other Velázquez portraits are easily recognizable likenesses of the members of the Spanish royal family,