geekosaur @ 37
You're right, of course! It was Earth-without-J!
And there's certainly the linguistic spin which makes it interesting on that level, although you can sort of get that from fairly standard "Romans took over this bit but NOT this bit" alternates (or equivalent).
The bit that got me, though (and I'll be the first to admit that this almost certainly wasn't in the Heinlein!) was that reportedly there was no J -- but everything else was exactly the same! I mean, how does that even happen?!
Now that I'm "growed up" and regularly interact with people who cannot hear (or, therefore, reproduce) the n/ng difference, or mistake "l" for "n" or "b" for "p", I'm less rabbit-holed by the idea, I must admit.
It's never been the "Hitler won" type alternate realities that have sent me down the rabbit hole. Or even the "Kennedy impeached / Nixon assassinated" type.
The one that fascinated me for years was the one mentioned only in passing in Heinlein's "Number of the Beast": the "Earth without K" (at least, I think it was "K").
Everything's exactly the same. Except there's no K.
When you start to thin about it, it's inda inky.
The "1918" chapter of "Triplanetary" -- the first novel in E E "Doc" Smith's fascistic "Lensmen" series.
It's too long to post, but you can read it at Gutenburg:
www.gutenberg.org/files/20782/20782-h/20782-h.htm
It's either really, really, really bad writing, or a bravura experiment in punctuation -- you decide!
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