The American heritage school dictionary.

ALPHABETICAL ORDER Alphabetical order, like spelling and the decimal system, is one of the elementary coding systems of our culture. Learning to alphabetize is a basic requirement of our education. It is also quite hard work, since the arbitrary order of the letters cannot be explained or made rational; in itself the order is meaningless and uninteresting. Only long repetition and practice can condition the mind into knowing automatically that Q follows P and that stationery follows stationary. But once the alphabet has been internalized, programmed into the brain, access to vast collections of information is swift and efficient. It is obvious that most reference books are impossible without the concept of alphabetical order. There is no other all-purpose system for arranging words or names. For special purposes, the entries can be arranged in taxonomic groups, as in a thesaurus or "Yellow Pages" telephone directory. Such arrangements have certain special values, but the disadvantage is that finding an entry in such a list requires thought. Alphabetical order, having no rational content, requires no thought. Some people, such as lexicographers or telephone information clerks, whose