Posted by dsman195276 in Outside

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english Answered

this question has been pusaleing me all day if we have "c" in english , why do we have "k"? they both make the same sound.

Tags:english

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jdege

13 years ago

Mark Twain noticed this, quite a while ago, and offered improvements:

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

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.

Mark Twain

dsman195276

Reply 13 years ago

the only thing i aggree with on that is to get rid of x. i dont even know the sound it makes.

chooseausername

Reply 13 years ago

i dont even know the sound it makes.

This makes ks, like in K'nex (Koneks), or texte (tekst).

What's your first language ???? =o)

dsman195276

Reply 13 years ago

what about xlaphone ? sorry i cant spell that word(i never use it)and my first language is english.

chooseausername

Reply 13 years ago

That's xylophone.
I'm not sure about how it is pronounced in English, but in French (that's the same word) we pronounce it : kzeelofon' or kseelofon' .......

So, I guess that you're supposed to pronounce it ksailofon '

dsman195276

Reply 13 years ago

we pronuce the x as a z for z-I-la-phone

chooseausername

Reply 13 years ago

LOL !! I'm sure Mark Twain did not imagine there would be so many peoples writing like that on the internet and on their cellphones !!

its a lion

Reply 13 years ago

No kidding. The sad thing is that letter was actually more legible than a lot of stuff I have seen online.

Goodhart

13 years ago

ps: I am having troubles finding pusaleing in my dictionary... ;-)

Goodhart

Reply 13 years ago

? :-) ?

chooseausername

Reply 13 years ago

I'd interpret it as a "pursuing" but I can't be 100% sure ..................

...... is "pursuing" actually pronounced pusaleing ????? =o]

Goodhart

Reply 13 years ago

I bet that is correct, but it was not really apparent to me at first.

tomonto

Reply 13 years ago

puzzling? possibly thats what i thought it was.

chooseausername

Reply 13 years ago

Oh yes ! This seems to be phonetically closer. =o)

pusale(ing) ; puzale(ing) ; puzzle(ing)

Ok, +1 point for you Tomonto ! =o)

AnarchistKid

13 years ago

im almost ashamed to have found this topic, have you never used a word like "city"? seriously dude.

dsman195276

Reply 13 years ago

sorry. i was not thinking about words like that. just that they make the same sound.

Goodhart

13 years ago

Here's one for you; the modern "J" sound was was not associated with the letter J until a few centuries ago. Since it is of German origin, it was considered a "yut" If one looks at the original manuscripts of document from the early 18th century, one finds no J's, but all the words one would spell with a J have a I
Iesus, Ioseph, Koiach, etc.

dsman195276

13 years ago

i need to know!