Oz restaurateur invents symbol for 'the'

An Australian man has invented a substitute letter to replace the word "the" as he believes that it is more efficient.

Paul Mathis, a restaurateur by profession, has invested 38,000 dollars into developing the symbol which he would like to see added as a 27th letter of the alphabet.

Mathis told The Age that the word 'and' is only the fifth-most used word in English and it has its own symbol - the ampersand, the Daily Telegraph reported.

He asserted that it's time we accorded the same respect to 'the'.

The new letter is believed to look like a combination of upper case T and a lower case h.