Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Do we really need K?

Do we really need k?
Playing word games in my head trying to combat insomnia brought me to the realization that “k” is a pretty useless letter.
I mean, how many 2 letter words can you make with it? Kf isn’t a word. Kh isn’t a word. Kn isn’t a word. I get nowhere trying to sleep with k. M on the other hand? Ma, me, my and assorted abbreviations—ml, mc, md, MP, Mr., MS, m…zzzzzzzzz.
This observation got me to thinking about k words. We can neel on our nees without the k. We can nit without the k. We can cut with a nife just as well as a knife.
And then there’s the question of words like cat. Why not kat (after all it’s kitten not citten)? Or why circus and not cirkus? Try explaining those anomalies to an English as a Second Language learner.
What about the ck blend, you ask. Let’s go for the soft and hard c instead. French has delightful little accent marks to guide pronunciation. We could adopt some for ourselves. Quick becomes quiç or qui¢ or quiċ. Knack becomes naċ. The possibilities are endless.
As for my cousin Kirk … I’m sure he has a middle name.

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