Why do "o" and "p" have to be the same letter?

[short bus president]

Except for the little vertical line part, I mean? The "heroes" / "herpes" thing can get a guy in trouble.

[Kierkegaard]

1. For the same reason

that three letters arranged in the same order with only a differnt starting letter, sound completely different from one another:

Bomb
Tomb
Comb

[short bus president]

2. That's a cromulent guess, but no.

You are wrong.

The reason that "o" and "p" are the same letter (and "b," too, for that matter, not to mention the evil under-thingie twins "g" and "q") is that the alphabet developers were a shiftless and scavery and altogether unimaginative lot, and they couldn't be arsed thinking "outside the box" with too many squiggles, or whoosieflops, or even plain damned straight lines that appear in orientations other than vertical or horizontal. Their collosal failures of imagination left us with a bland alphabet, in which no single letter contains more than one dot, and towards the end, they even resort to the lame old "double-something" gambit. It's shameful, really.

[Kierkegaard]

4. Actually, it wasn't a guess at all.

It was just a desperate attempt at getting attention.

[sundog]

3. the same reason i & j are the same letter