Convert letters to numbers
<p>I have a bunch of letters, and cannot for the life of me figure out how to convert them to their number equivalent.</p>

<pre><code>letters[1:4]
</code></pre>

<p>Is there a function</p>

<pre><code>numbers['e']
</code></pre>

<p>which returns</p>

<pre><code>5
</code></pre>

<p>or something user defined (ie 1994)? </p>

<p>I want to convert all 26 letters to a specific value.</p>