Why is this not doing as I expect?

Jenny Charlene wrote:
> Sort only looks to the first letter of each line, ...

Sort looks at as much of each line as it needs to.

Example, if you sort these lines:
gosh
freedom
apple
time
free
tully
more
sort-test

You'll get this:
apple
free
freedom
gosh
more
sort-test
time
tully

You can do some clever things with the -u option.

Vic