I am a person who loves language and spelling manipulation. If you decide to abbreviate a word in your speech-how do you write it when you translate that to written converstions? One of the former president of Reed college believed in throweing owt awl speling rools and speling ownlee foeneticaly. I love stuff like that! However, there is one form of spelling manipulation that I simply cannot abide. Changing Cs to Ks.
It is something that has always caused me rage, a rage which was rekindled as I walked past the StarKargo warehouse. StarKargo is some low budget delivery company which is only made more low budget by the letters peeling off their van and the fact that they call themselves a "quality" service. (A low budget blog post for another time: don't call yourself quality if you can't even paint your van properly) In any case, if those things weren't enough, I am immediately put off by spelling Cargo, Kargo. Cargo, as a word, is perfectly adequate. Sure, it's not exciting, but who needs exciting in a delivery company?
Everyone wants to stand out, it's true, but if you want to stand out for me, please don't change your Cs to Ks. The only thing it makes me think is that you couldn't think of anything more original to do to make you notice you and you could only use the most clichéd and boring and pathetic way of drawing attention to yourself. There are some things-mullets, those beach t-shirts with sexy cartoons in bikinis on them, driving cars that spew black noxious gas-that do in fact draw attention to you...BUT IT'S NEVER IN A GOOD WAY. ONLY IN A WAY THAT MAKES PEOPLE THINK YOU ARE THE MOST LOW BUDGET.
There is nothing inherently better about Ks. It only makes you seem unsure about your ability to spell. And it definitely makes you seem really unoriginal. It's like your marketing team was phoning it in that day. Or maybe they were playing a prank on you and didn't actually want you to get any business. And, to use some really low budget political scare tactics....turning Cs to Ks is only one of the KKKs favorite pastimes.*
So...please...no more of this. Resist temptation. Keep that C a K. Your customers will thank you!
*It really is! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan#Vocabulary
Um, the thing is I cannot actually UNDERSTAND what possessed the KKK to call their congregation a "KLONVOCATION" or their ritual book a "KLORAN." DON'T THEY UNDERSTAND THAT THEIR ORIGINS ARE SEE-THROUGH AND PRETTY MUCH NOBODY THINKS THEY ARE COOL?
ReplyDeleteUM. ONLY DUMB.
Yes, also, it's perplexing HOW low budget they are even though they are so evil?!?!
ReplyDeleteIt's true that C is a pretty useless letter though. It can be replaced by K or S in pretty much every situation and still all words are pretty readable. The only time it makes a sound that K or S can't make is when you have CH.
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ReplyDelete"There is nothing inherently better about Ks."
ReplyDeleteI disagree wholeheartedly with this statement.
Of kourse there is something inherently better about Ks than Cs, namely, the ability to instantly know its pronunsiation! The C does not have a distinkt identity in English, loosely wavering in its allegianse to the K and S sounds. To make the only original sound it kan, it needs to team up with an H, to produse the CH sound.
An utterly useless letter.
That said, I agree with the low-budgetry of replasing Cs with Ks ONLY on one's shop signs alone. Far better to take a strong stand against mediokrity and dispense with the malingering offender altogether.
Then, the C kan still serve a useful funktion in spelling words like cildren and mercandise. Of kourse, now that C is not pulling double- and triple-duty moonlighting as K and S, there is no longer a need for C to suffer the indignity of being propped up by another letter, and it kan stand alone, signifying its sound with the pride of a pure letter.
-K