"Yes," you scream to yourself in pure, unadulterated bliss. "Another 'Open Letter' article courtesy of the Odyssey." After you finish cleaning the saliva off of your keyboard, you click on the link to this article and gasp in abject horror as you realize that you've been bamboozled, as this isn't your typical open letter article that you've grown to fantasize about.

This is about the letter "u."

Ah, the letter "u." It's a pretty neat letter. Here's the letter "u" in cursive:

And here's the letter "u" in braille:

Whoa.

First, you can use the letter "u" in a ton of different ways. I mean, you can pronounce that sucker like four different ways. For instance, as a general rule, you should always put ducks in coffins before you bury them. That last sentence had the letter "u" pronounced in two short and long fashions, which is pretty nifty if you ask me.

You can also use "u" to denote things as well, like when you're writing the chemical symbol for Uranium, or when you're talking about the University of Miami. "U" is also the symbol for the atomic mass unit and is also the unit for the mass of a particular enzyme. Sometimes, "u" is used to talk about micro-measurements when the Greek letter μ isn't available, but this is more of a graphic approximation than anything, so I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it if I were you.

Sometimes, the letter "u" looks like a "v," but that's just some nonsense about allographs and the Gothic alphabet in 1386 and what have you. But hey, now when you're hanging out with your group of friends that like to talk about Shakespeare and other old people, you can be all like, "Hey, did you see that Odyssey article about the letter "u" and how it actually used to be an allograph and th-" but by this point they're probably talking about the latest units of cultural ideas and symbols they perused the previous night and you've faded into the background.

Also, there are times when British people like to spell color and labor incorrectly, but if I'm keeping it real with you, I don't have any links on this. It's just something I've noticed and felt like I should point out.

So here's to looking at you, "u." Wait, that reminds me, you could also use "u" as a shorthand for "you" when you are text messaging your buddies on your mobile device or hanging out in a chatroom on AIM. I think that about covers it, actually. Just to recap, it's a pretty important letter, and probably the greatest open letter that we have. I mean damn, I used the letter "u" just about 186 times in this article alone. Next time you go to speak a word with the letter "u" in it, just take a second to stop and appreciate how lucky "u" have it.