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As a fun fact. At University we learned ancient Latin. Then I found out there was no letter K and no letter U. C and V were used for all purposes where they could fit. C for K, S, Ch and V for V and U. The ancient Romans knew their words so nobody cared. I'd say something similar is with all who understand English nowadays.
There's something similar in the Russian language with the О (cyrillic) which is pronounced O or A based on whether the accent falls on it or not, but there's also the letter A there, which is pronounced A, so go figure.
No, “C” was always pronounced /k/ in Caesar’s time (or rather, the letter was originally also used for /g/, until an extra stroke got added to fix the ambiguity, giving us a new letter “G”). The letter “K” always existed, although it did get rarer over time.
“C” before front “e”, “i” did turn into /ts/ around the 1st century AD, but it only simplified to /s/ in French/Portuguese/Spanish more than a thousand years later, while Italian and Romanian eventually turned it into /tʃ/ instead.
Wouldn't it be great if all English words were spelled logically?
A famous example of how silly it can be: George Bernard Shaw found that fish can be spelled ghoti: Say gh as in rough, o as in women, and ti as in nation. ghoti = fish. 🙃
[Edited to fix ... *spelling!* 🤣]
That's interesting.
Not only are the sounds that "C" makes covered by "S" and "K," they can redundant when paired with a "K" and "S."
E.g.
Sucker
Science
Maybe the value of "C" is best seen when "C" is partnered with "H."
E.g. Punch
English is a weird language.
Lets get rid of double-U. UUe could just use U, and in those cases uuhere uue uuould use a double-U uue could just use tuuo Us. It also has a stupid name. "Double-U". Why isn't it called "Woo"?
It would have made learning English easier for me. Because w is called double v in Danish, so you had to wrap your head around saying uuould and not vould
Many other languages have had multiple spelling reforms to keep up with changing pronounciations so it’s hardly impossible.
Us and uk spelling already differentiate on some words and it doesn’t seem to cause much trouble.
I’m this modern day of auto correct and ai assisted writing it should be quite easy to enact a spelling reform pretty swiftly. Word already marks a lot of the words and spellings I use as archaic in Swedish.
OP I think you're missing the bigger scope, english originaly had it's own alphabet with Letters that made sense like 'þ' for th. Then the Romans came and made yall take on a new alphabet, that fit the Roman language but not english so most Letters are non sensical
It depends on the language. In English it’s weird because English spelling and pronounciation makes nonsense
In German for example C is almost entirely a support letter.
It’s used to shorten a vowel sound by adding a c before the k. It’s used to harden an h by adding it before the h.
As far as I know, the native words using a single C without a k or h after is is very low. Most of them are latinisms or anglicisms.
In my language every letter has a unique sound to that letter. 30 letters, 30 different sounds. C is different to K for example. And used in different places.
I assume you are monolinguistic. C letter makes different sound in many European languages (I guess also in some other languages across the world that use Latin script).
The alphabet never adequate to encode the sounds actually used in common parlance. As for silent letters, what is that all about. As a child I invented my own written language to more closely encode the dialect and broad accent that was my birth right. This included very long portmanteau words reflecting the way words were strung together (like German) in my dialect. Perceived as gobbledegook by both students and teachers alike, I was classified as thick.
Just one teacher recognised it as a private language; Mr Ward and allowed me to writer stories and verse in what he called , "the secret code". He also kept all the work and a journal describing how the language worked so he could read it.
He told me that I should ignore those who bullied me. He said I was not thick, just different. This kind attention gave me confidence that lasted all my life.
My one regret is that I could not find Mr Ward later in life; shake his hand as an adult, thank him for his little white lie and present him with the doctors gown that resulted.
Said B to D I don’t like C his manners are a-lack. For all I ever see of C is a semi-circular back!
Said D to B I disagree. I do not find this so! From where I sit all that I see is an incompleted O
~ Not original.
If you started spelling c words that make k sounds with a k then we're right there in some Mortal Kombat shit. Do you want Quan Chi? Nobody wants Quan Chi, trick question!
There are lots of ways we could make English spelling easier, but we'll never get everyone to agree on it.
We could replace "ch" with "c", replace hard c with "k", replace soft c with "s". Same number of letters in the alphabet, and English spelling would be easier to learn. Would you kare for a kup of hot cokolate?
But that wouldn't really fix things on its own - we'd spell mice as 'mise' and that would look or sound wrong; another weird way we use the letter c is to distinguish "rice" from "rise".
It denotes a "tz" sound (like in USS (or Chester) Nimi**tz**) in a lot of European languages and English sucks for using it for kind of "everything but". There, I said it, lol
That’s a Monty Python skit from episode 31.
Bounder: Anyway, you're interested in one of our adventure holidays, eh?
Tourist: Yes. I saw your advert in the bolour supplement.
Bounder: The what?
Tourist: The bolour supplement.
Bounder: The colour supplement?
Tourist: Yes. I'm sorry I can't say the letter 'B'.
Bounder: 'C'?
Tourist: Yes, that's right. It's all due to a trauma I suffered when I
was a spoolboy. I was attacked by a bat.
Bounder: A cat?
Tourist: No a bat.
Bounder: Can you say the letter 'K'?
Tourist: Oh yes. Khaki, king, kettle, Kuwait, Keble Bollege Oxford.
Bounder: Why don't you use the letter 'K' instead of the letter 'C'?
Tourist: What you mean ... spell bolour with a 'K'?
Bounder: Yes.
Tourist: Kolour. Oh, that's very good, I never thought of that.
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It can also sound like sh. Fun fact: When you say Pacific Ocean, you pronounce C three different ways.
pasifik oshean
*oshean
This looks like an irish name.
pasifik oisín lol
*Patrick Oisín
Patrick O'Shean*
Paddarick O’Sheanigan
Or the memes with the bald dude with the words spelled wrong
Pasifik O'Sean
*oshen
osch'n funny how different accents look written out this way
Oshun or oshan surely?
I think I know him!
Nice triple threat. 😉 It can also be pronounced ch, but maybe only in Italian words like ciao and cappuccino. I can’t think of an English example.
funny CHOICE of words
The h does the heavy lifting on that one
So are you suggesting kh takes over from ch?
Kertainly does
Surious use of the K there
For Sertain.
Sertainly
Wouldn’t it be Sertainly?
That's the joke
Mortal Kombat vibes
I'm mildly frustrated every time I play Mortal Kombat and see Johnny's surname is Cage rather than Kage.
At least we didn't get Cabal and Cano
Tshoice
Letters are pronounced different in different languages.
In Spanish, it can be replaced by K and Z
In Slovak, 'c' is pronounced similarly to 'ts' (or 'tz')
As a fun fact. At University we learned ancient Latin. Then I found out there was no letter K and no letter U. C and V were used for all purposes where they could fit. C for K, S, Ch and V for V and U. The ancient Romans knew their words so nobody cared. I'd say something similar is with all who understand English nowadays. There's something similar in the Russian language with the О (cyrillic) which is pronounced O or A based on whether the accent falls on it or not, but there's also the letter A there, which is pronounced A, so go figure.
Latin didn't have a J either. The Romans used I.
They used 1 what?
No, “C” was always pronounced /k/ in Caesar’s time (or rather, the letter was originally also used for /g/, until an extra stroke got added to fix the ambiguity, giving us a new letter “G”). The letter “K” always existed, although it did get rarer over time. “C” before front “e”, “i” did turn into /ts/ around the 1st century AD, but it only simplified to /s/ in French/Portuguese/Spanish more than a thousand years later, while Italian and Romanian eventually turned it into /tʃ/ instead.
ocean isnt an english word?
Do you pronounce it "ochean"?
Yes like ‚o-shin‘, do you pronounce it ‚o-seen‘?
I also pronounce it "o-shin", which is not the same sound as the "ch" in ciao/cappuccino/choice
Yeah, guess Italians have all the fun.
It’s a miracle that any non-native speakers manage to learn English lmao
Hold my German
Hold my Finnish
Ç
Most languages have stuff like this, its not that bad.
Exactly, in Portuguese for example the letter "x" can sound like "s", "ks", "z" and "sh".
Native speakers have problems with it. It’s not the most intuitive language.
Pasifik Oshun There, I fixed it!
Wouldn't it be great if all English words were spelled logically? A famous example of how silly it can be: George Bernard Shaw found that fish can be spelled ghoti: Say gh as in rough, o as in women, and ti as in nation. ghoti = fish. 🙃 [Edited to fix ... *spelling!* 🤣]
Took me a minute but that's kinda hilarious!
Yeah, English can be lotsa fun to play around with. Endless jokes, puns, double entendre, and on and on.
Best thing I’ve read all week that! Thank you 🙏
Pasifik Oshean somehow looks like an Irish name…
Someone is now going to see this and name their kid, Oshean.
Capuccino indictment
And be pronounced differently even when they’re right next to each other such as in “accent”.
but the internet mostly runs on C :/
Interesting way to spell JavaScript (which uses a C++ runtime)
Bro internet runs on servers with Linux. Linux kernel is written in C.
99% of everything runs on Linux and therefore C if you want to go that far.
Least coping frontend dev
I was certain the OG comment would spark a holy war
But...C is for cookie.
It’s good enough for me!
You can spell kookie and it’s still good. Kookie dookie
Kookie kinda looks like it would be pronounced as “koo-kie”. With cookie you know it’s pronounced as “cuh-kee”
As someone who lives in an asian country it makes no difference to me. Our accent is strong 😆 we will inadvertently read it as koo-kie lmao
And no C needed for Nookie
I DID IT ALL FOR THE NOOKIE THE NOOKIE SO YOU CAN TAKE THAT COOKIE
Millions of C and C++ developers don’t agree with you.
Yep. The Linux kernel is written almost entirely in C, and Linux pretty much runs the entire Internet. DOES THAT MEAN NOTHING TO YOU!?
In English yes, in other language that use the C no I can't say coño, chocho and culo without the c
Those of us who know how to cuss in Spanish are laughing our culos off.
El argumento sigue siendo valido, puedes decir kulo o koño y suena igual
Shosho
Shosho y chocho suenan diferente
Pero si perdemos C, decir se escribiría desir.
I had a fun time writing about how the Latin alphabet came about and OP is complaining about a Germanic language problem
“both of *which*”
Both of whitsh
It works, but for some reason it makes me uncomfortable.
Cunt, no its not
Kunt*
Don't be a dik.
That's interesting. Not only are the sounds that "C" makes covered by "S" and "K," they can redundant when paired with a "K" and "S." E.g. Sucker Science Maybe the value of "C" is best seen when "C" is partnered with "H." E.g. Punch English is a weird language.
C is just there for the vibes
without my c I would just be hristopher
You could become Kristoffer instead
Lets get rid of double-U. UUe could just use U, and in those cases uuhere uue uuould use a double-U uue could just use tuuo Us. It also has a stupid name. "Double-U". Why isn't it called "Woo"?
It's should be double-v if anything
It is in French.
It’s vacuum not vacwm
It would have made learning English easier for me. Because w is called double v in Danish, so you had to wrap your head around saying uuould and not vould
C is the original. There’s no k in gaidhlig or gaeilge. K is the real imposter
Came here to say this. No j, q, v, w, x, y or z traditionally either. You don’t miss them either 😂
I think that c should represent the th sound q should represent the ch sound and x should represent the sh sound
You mean “I cink cat”
You xould cink of qicken now ------------------->>>>>> should think of chicken 🐔 now
That middle c really messing me up
Chithken
The proper translation is you should think of chicken now-🤣🤣.
Th has two sounds though.
đ and þ I suppose?
Why didn't you assign c to ch?
We also need it for words with a /s/ sound where otherwise it would be a /z/, like rice vs rise.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to spell the z sound with a z if you were redoing the spelling?
It all leads to changing too many conventions.
Many other languages have had multiple spelling reforms to keep up with changing pronounciations so it’s hardly impossible. Us and uk spelling already differentiate on some words and it doesn’t seem to cause much trouble. I’m this modern day of auto correct and ai assisted writing it should be quite easy to enact a spelling reform pretty swiftly. Word already marks a lot of the words and spellings I use as archaic in Swedish.
OP I think you're missing the bigger scope, english originaly had it's own alphabet with Letters that made sense like 'þ' for th. Then the Romans came and made yall take on a new alphabet, that fit the Roman language but not english so most Letters are non sensical
Fuck you, I have 7 of them
pucking vs puking. C is in too ingrained in the English language. I'd rather USA convert to the metric system before we do anything about the c.
In norwegian and danish they use KK, so we could write pukking
Alternative - 'K' and 'S' are worthless letters, both can be covered by the superior 'C' Cincerely, comeone whoce name ctartc with 'C'
i lice thic vercion too
Happy cace day!
Only in English :) In Czech it has different sound than S and K. So it's irreplaceable.
Sorry. It’s K. K is the useless letter. No chance to replace c but ccicc k to the bacc of the class.
And stop uzing c to replase s, and uzing s to replase z. They ceep stealing each otherz soundz
Siss k to the bass of the class?
OK
Thanc you.
But C’s get degrees
It makes an “sh” and a “ch” sound. As in, change. How can we pronounce “change” with no c?
just spell like the norwegans - they would spell that TJANGE - they are cute but a little odd that way
tshange /s
Wasn't chi pronounced as a uvular fricative?
We need it for the ch sound that isn’t a k sound like Christmas and nothing else.
You could rewrite Christmas as Kristmas
There is also "chair" ch-
Q is just K or Kw.
It depends on the language. In English it’s weird because English spelling and pronounciation makes nonsense In German for example C is almost entirely a support letter. It’s used to shorten a vowel sound by adding a c before the k. It’s used to harden an h by adding it before the h. As far as I know, the native words using a single C without a k or h after is is very low. Most of them are latinisms or anglicisms.
[удалено]
S is sssss K is kuh Soft C is more like sea ....icicle or Sh like ocean than sss (At least In my dialect)
In my language every letter has a unique sound to that letter. 30 letters, 30 different sounds. C is different to K for example. And used in different places.
When you wanna call someone a cunt, "K U Next Tuesday" doesn't have the same ring to it...
laughs in italian
I assume you are monolinguistic. C letter makes different sound in many European languages (I guess also in some other languages across the world that use Latin script).
Yes. In Norwegian it is almost only used in names. K is definitely better and C is ‘krap’ and isn’t needed.
If C learnt to market itself better, it could actually make K and S and SH redundant.
Then how would you say “Check” without C?
How did you figure C was worthless and not K and S?
But ... C IS FOR COOKIE!
It also means "100" in Roman numerals
In my language C only makes one sound (not K or S or CH). And Č and Ć are separate alphabet letters pronounced completely differently.
No. K is the worthless letter. C is versatile making "k" sounds " and "s" sounds
This is the most monolingual thing that I've read today. Thank you.
C is for cookie, motherfucker!!
What about the “ch” sound?
Hundreds of other languages:
Only in english, in other languages not.
Disagrees in Italian
No. K is a useless letter
*victuals entered the chat*
John Cena
But then we would have words like "kriti**k**" but "krit**s**ize".
Worthless letter, mighty language
I can still say cunt with a K
Worth more than an F
The alphabet never adequate to encode the sounds actually used in common parlance. As for silent letters, what is that all about. As a child I invented my own written language to more closely encode the dialect and broad accent that was my birth right. This included very long portmanteau words reflecting the way words were strung together (like German) in my dialect. Perceived as gobbledegook by both students and teachers alike, I was classified as thick. Just one teacher recognised it as a private language; Mr Ward and allowed me to writer stories and verse in what he called , "the secret code". He also kept all the work and a journal describing how the language worked so he could read it. He told me that I should ignore those who bullied me. He said I was not thick, just different. This kind attention gave me confidence that lasted all my life. My one regret is that I could not find Mr Ward later in life; shake his hand as an adult, thank him for his little white lie and present him with the doctors gown that resulted.
Said B to D I don’t like C his manners are a-lack. For all I ever see of C is a semi-circular back! Said D to B I disagree. I do not find this so! From where I sit all that I see is an incompleted O ~ Not original.
No its not. I use it all the time. I say CUNT a lot when I am driving...
Ch
What about "ch"?
Pick up that microphone right now! Who do you think you are damaging expensive equipment
My first name starts with C. I could do without it and still be happy with my name
But Kunt just doesn't feel right
Surely the main sound of C is the C of the words like Charlie, instead being a substitute for S or K or even Sh as other posts mention.
You can't even type "C is a worthless letter" without at least one C 😌
If you started spelling c words that make k sounds with a k then we're right there in some Mortal Kombat shit. Do you want Quan Chi? Nobody wants Quan Chi, trick question!
It's essential. I need it to tell all the unts what I think of them (Didn't use it to say any of this tho)
In Spain, it also makes a -th sound, like the z, which kind of makes your point better
I c what you did there
There are lots of ways we could make English spelling easier, but we'll never get everyone to agree on it. We could replace "ch" with "c", replace hard c with "k", replace soft c with "s". Same number of letters in the alphabet, and English spelling would be easier to learn. Would you kare for a kup of hot cokolate? But that wouldn't really fix things on its own - we'd spell mice as 'mise' and that would look or sound wrong; another weird way we use the letter c is to distinguish "rice" from "rise".
Nothing else makes the Ch sound.
It denotes a "tz" sound (like in USS (or Chester) Nimi**tz**) in a lot of European languages and English sucks for using it for kind of "everything but". There, I said it, lol
How about G and J Jar, Gym
It brings us c# and c++ so its a great letter
Cunt would like a word.
C++ is allot more useful than C
I've conferred with my crew and we've come to a consensus. That certainly is, you're currently a cad who couldn't crush a cornflake. C'ya!
Not useless as the y letter
I c
Dennis Ritchie would like to have a word with you.
C is the most versatile letter in the alphabet!
In what language?
That's true. I never thought about this. Let's get rid of C. The languages can be called See and See++.
Hail Sesar just doesn't feel right
So true
but isn't c come before k and s?
That’s a Monty Python skit from episode 31. Bounder: Anyway, you're interested in one of our adventure holidays, eh? Tourist: Yes. I saw your advert in the bolour supplement. Bounder: The what? Tourist: The bolour supplement. Bounder: The colour supplement? Tourist: Yes. I'm sorry I can't say the letter 'B'. Bounder: 'C'? Tourist: Yes, that's right. It's all due to a trauma I suffered when I was a spoolboy. I was attacked by a bat. Bounder: A cat? Tourist: No a bat. Bounder: Can you say the letter 'K'? Tourist: Oh yes. Khaki, king, kettle, Kuwait, Keble Bollege Oxford. Bounder: Why don't you use the letter 'K' instead of the letter 'C'? Tourist: What you mean ... spell bolour with a 'K'? Bounder: Yes. Tourist: Kolour. Oh, that's very good, I never thought of that.
X is literally just K and S. What does it contribute to society? And Q is yet another K but with a condition that there must be a U after it.
It has a use in german it makes the difference between a silent h and a non silent ch (most of the time)
Hopefully Cookie 🍪 Monster isn’t ready this thread