Re: Dropping Q and C (was: Some isolating verb patterns)

On 20 Jan 2005, at 12.13 am, caeruleancentaur wrote:

> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Philip Newton <philip.newton@g...>
> wrote:
>
>> Hmm? It's the usual spelling before front vowels, which includes
>> native words such as "ken" or "kick". Though it's true that I can't
>> think of that many words offhand that start in ke- or ki- as opposed
>> to, say, ca-.
>
> A quick glance through the AHD shows me 30 English words that begin
> with ke- and 33 that begin with ki-.  I tried to eliminate obviously
> foreign borrowings like "kiwi."  I wasn't sure if I should include
> kerb/curb or not.  :-)>
I see no reason not to---in fact, it just shows that <k> isn't so
foreign in English after all, if a word can be re-spelt from a k-less
form to a k-ful form. (<Kerb> is used in Australia, primarily as a
noun, but there was an ad on trams a while back by a large company
(which one I forget) that read 'Kerb your hunger'. I would hazard that
<curb> is more common in both senses though, in non-edited writings.)

--
Tristan.