4 ms·

I was hoping this article would be about the letter C and be from the future. The letter C is useless. It either makes the sound that S does or the sound K doe

I was hoping this article would be about the letter C and be from the future. The letter C is useless. It either makes the sound that S does or the sound K does. Instead of C we should just use an S or a K for every place a C is. Some may argue that without C we wouldn't have CH. And then I say, "Why do we need two characters to represent a single sound? It should have it's own letter." Alas, English spelling is all kinds of messed up. And I'll have to resign myself to that fact.

xattt 3y ago
C is also used for sounds that sound like “ts”; you can’t make that sound with an s or k alone. Sidenote: I see that some transliteration systems make Q represent “ch”.
- mcv 3y ago
  In Slavic languages and in German, the 'c' is (almost?) always the 'ts' sound. That makes it as useful as the 'x', although that's also one we could do without. The 'c' could also be considered useful exactly because it has the unique property of changing its sound depending on the surroundings. In Dutch, for example, the word for politician is "politicus" where the 'c' had a k sound, but the plural is "politici", where the 'c' has an 's' sound. It would be a lot less clean if we had to swap 'k' and 's'. Maybe we should only use the 'c' for words where that property matters. I hope you all remember the various "language reform" essays that get progressively less readable as various redundant letters are dropped or replaced. Although you could also argue we should add some. The 'e' can be pronounced in several different ways, and not being able to tell the difference can occasionally lead to confusion. In Dutch, for example, the words for "a" and "one" are the same: "een", but pronounced differently.
  - saalweachter 3y ago
    > That makes it as useful as the 'x', although that's also one we could do without. I would like to further improve the 'x' by making its pronunciation 'sk' at the beginning of a phoneme, rather than 'z', 'ex', or maybe 'k'. It sounds fine in words like 'xylophone' or 'xray', and there are plenty of words like 'xy', 'xate', 'xunk', or 'xeleton' so we could re-balance our alphabet.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > I hope you all remember the various "language reform" essays that get progressively less readable as various redundant letters are dropped or replaced. Can you cite any that are putting in legitimate effort and expertise into the letter choices, and not picking a whole bunch of things that are half bad on purpose? Also it's a bad idea to rate an orthography based on how it looks with 0 hours of practice.
mbg721 3y ago
I'm told that this is a consequence of the Romans absorbing the Etruscans and being so heavily influenced by the Greeks. There were just too many velar consonants to go around, and they were exchanged sometimes, like Caius and Gaius.
qqtt 3y ago
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  I know this is a popular joke, but with English spelling failing to adapt to the great vowel shift and pronunciation shifting in other ways as well (like no longer pronouncing the k in knight), you might as well apply these rules. They make no less sense than the current spelling, and perhaps the removal of unnecessary letters makes the situation even slightly better as well. With some kids even learning to read English by learning the general shape of the words rather than the individual letter pronunciations (based on some flawed research), I wouldn't mind a general spelling reform to bring the situation under control.
- yc-kraln 3y ago
  The further down you got, the more like German it sounded as I was mentally pronouncing it--but it was somehow a smooth gradient. Weird!
  - Muromec 3y ago
    Which was exactly de point of de joke originally.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
C, S, K and X. W and V and U. J and G. Q! The alphabet is a hot mess.

xattt 3y ago

C is also used for sounds that sound like “ts”; you can’t make that sound with an s or k alone. Sidenote: I see that some transliteration systems make Q represent “ch”.

mcv 3y ago
In Slavic languages and in German, the 'c' is (almost?) always the 'ts' sound. That makes it as useful as the 'x', although that's also one we could do without. The 'c' could also be considered useful exactly because it has the unique property of changing its sound depending on the surroundings. In Dutch, for example, the word for politician is "politicus" where the 'c' had a k sound, but the plural is "politici", where the 'c' has an 's' sound. It would be a lot less clean if we had to swap 'k' and 's'. Maybe we should only use the 'c' for words where that property matters. I hope you all remember the various "language reform" essays that get progressively less readable as various redundant letters are dropped or replaced. Although you could also argue we should add some. The 'e' can be pronounced in several different ways, and not being able to tell the difference can occasionally lead to confusion. In Dutch, for example, the words for "a" and "one" are the same: "een", but pronounced differently.
- saalweachter 3y ago
  > That makes it as useful as the 'x', although that's also one we could do without. I would like to further improve the 'x' by making its pronunciation 'sk' at the beginning of a phoneme, rather than 'z', 'ex', or maybe 'k'. It sounds fine in words like 'xylophone' or 'xray', and there are plenty of words like 'xy', 'xate', 'xunk', or 'xeleton' so we could re-balance our alphabet.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  > I hope you all remember the various "language reform" essays that get progressively less readable as various redundant letters are dropped or replaced. Can you cite any that are putting in legitimate effort and expertise into the letter choices, and not picking a whole bunch of things that are half bad on purpose? Also it's a bad idea to rate an orthography based on how it looks with 0 hours of practice.

mbg721 3y ago

I'm told that this is a consequence of the Romans absorbing the Etruscans and being so heavily influenced by the Greeks. There were just too many velar consonants to go around, and they were exchanged sometimes, like Caius and Gaius.

qqtt 3y ago

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

jeroenhd 3y ago
I know this is a popular joke, but with English spelling failing to adapt to the great vowel shift and pronunciation shifting in other ways as well (like no longer pronouncing the k in knight), you might as well apply these rules. They make no less sense than the current spelling, and perhaps the removal of unnecessary letters makes the situation even slightly better as well. With some kids even learning to read English by learning the general shape of the words rather than the individual letter pronunciations (based on some flawed research), I wouldn't mind a general spelling reform to bring the situation under control.
yc-kraln 3y ago
The further down you got, the more like German it sounded as I was mentally pronouncing it--but it was somehow a smooth gradient. Weird!
- Muromec 3y ago
  Which was exactly de point of de joke originally.
avgcorrection 3y ago

JoeAltmaier 3y ago

C, S, K and X. W and V and U. J and G. Q! The alphabet is a hot mess.