The Three R's
The three R's, as in the letter "R" is a phrase sometimes used to describe the foundations of a basic skills oriented education program within schools: reading, writing and arithmetic. The phrase "the three Rs" is used because each word has a strong "R" phoneme at the beginning, and, obviously, due to the spellings of each word.
It is widely believed that Sir William Curtis, an alderman who became Lord Mayor of London, once presented a toast to the three Rs "reading, riting, and rithmetic" thereby betraying his illiteracy. In any event, the term was picked up by others and so used from the early 1800s on.
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