In numerous cultures, an arbitrary sequence of linguistic symbols is instilled into the subconscious awareness of every individual so that, without needing to ever state it explicitly, each letter symbol is always allocated its specific pecking order. There is thus perpetuated a comfortable and natural order of things. Symbol A can peck symbol B, B can peck C and so on, but rarely the other way around without an inevitable aggressive display of squawking and flying feathers. Even though Z might have important social observations to contribute about egg production or the tensile strength of chickenwire, it is always socially on the receiving end of whatever points are being made. Generally speaking, the imposition of this phenomenon is suffered with a minimum of complaint and, whilst the expectations of the alphabetic pecking order are undisturbed, peace and calm and standard egg production is normally attainable and breakout attempts are usually unsuccessful.

One of the undesirable consequences is that certain publications such as dictionaries distort our view of reality. An entirely unmerited interest and awareness is promoted of an Aard-vark and such a vital concept as Zymolysis is unfairly consigned to the very final page. The pragmatic reality is that a knowledge of the habits and classifications of a remote termite eating nocturnal mammal is of minimal import, compared to the everyday social significance of fermentation and its influence on social life. Similarly, such references as phonebooks, staff-lists and the notices for births and deaths, almost without exception, relegate the terminal members to social oblivion.

An elementary modification to an alphabetic system, which is socially long overdue and which would restore some much needed equity, would be to cycle the sequence every month. Just as it is now acceptable to dedicate individual days of the year to various worthy worldly causes, so we could assign each month thruout the year to one of the alphabetic characters. The letter for the previous month would be consigned to the bottom of the pecking order and each of the others would be promoted one level up the order. Pecking order supremacy would thus be roughly biennial rather than eternal. Such an arrangement might not suit some languages of course but then, in this chaotic existence, nothing is ever convenient.

In order to model the likely consequences of such social engineering, preliminary experiments with alphabetically named poultry hens have already been conducted. It must be admitted that they did not take too readily to the scheme. For the egg-laying production team the result was mixed. As might be expected the upper layers were resentful at not having their status reinforced and the lower layers were initially apprehensive about their altered position. With time, the level of resentment of the upper layers actually increased and the lower layers began to enjoy the benefits which they had hitherto not been aware of. The crucial problem was with the roosters. They would invariably develop severe psychotic disorders.

Leaving all this to one side however, the availability of administrative computers to human populations should be able to easily facilitate such a beneficial social revolution. In particular, any society that considers itself to be democratic should give careful consideration to eliminating this insidious source of inequality and disadvantage.