The Soft Sound of C

The Soft Sound of C The Soft Sound of C The Soft Sound of C By Maeve Maddox Shakespeare called z an â€Å"unnecessary† letter, but the letter c is probably a better candidate for the title. In modern English, c is a substitute letter, a stand-in symbol for two English sounds that have distinctive letters to represent them. These sounds are /k/ and /s/, as in cat and cent. C wasn’t always a mere substitute for the letters k and s. In Old English, c was the only symbol for the sound /k/. A note in the OED explains what happened: When the Roman alphabet was introduced into Britain, C had only the sound /k/ ; and this value of the letter has been retained by all the insular Celts: in Welsh, Irish, Gaelic, C, c, is still only = /k/ . The Old English or ‘Anglo-Saxon’ writing was learned from the Celts, apparently of Ireland; hence C, c, in Old English, was also originally = /k/ : the words kin, break, broken, thick, seek, were in Old English written cyn, brecan, brocen, à ¾icc, sà ©oc. In OE, as in Modern English, the letter s represented the sounds /s/ and /z/. Before the end of the OE period, c became palatalized before e and i. Meanwhile, changes were going on in French spelling and pronunciation. Among other things, French adopted the letter k to represent the sound /k/ in some words. The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 spelled more than political disaster. The Norman scribes who ousted their English counterparts were accustomed to Latin and French spelling conventions. When the Normans invaded England, English spelling went from consistent to what it is today. After the Conquest, c kept the /k/ sound in some English words like candle, cliff, corn, and crop, but in others, the sound /k/ was spelled with the new letter k, as in king, break, and seek. Rule: In modern English, when the letter c occurs before the letters i, e, or y, it represents its â€Å"soft† sound: /s/. Here are some examples: C followed by e accept (The first c in accept stands for the sound /k/; the second c stands for /s/.) ace acetate celebrity cell incense fence C followed by i acid cider cite citrus C followed by y cyborg piracy bouncy cycle icy infancy If you find exceptions to the rule, please share them. Note: This stated rule applies to the single letter c, not to letter combinations like ch, tch, or cious. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Spelling category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:50 Redundant Phrases to Avoid10 Colloquial Terms and Their MeaningsTypes of Ignorance

Research Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Research - Case Study Example (Baer, 34) Implementing a fixed exchange rate in Brazil is not a plausible concept because the value of the currency is constantly decreasing with the constant flooding of the currency in the market. The availability of the currency has prompted the currency to continuously lose its value, hence the increase in inflation (Taylor, 76). The same strategy (of using a fixed system) was applied in Zimbabwe, but the country succumbed to the harsh nature of inflation, this led to the country disregarding the local currency and using US Dollars instead. The URV or Unidade Real de Valor is a currency that is used in Brazil that is not subjected to the effects of inflation in Brazil. The aim was to absorb the effects of inflation in the country. The Brazil government implemented a fixed exchange rate for the URV to the Dollar (1 URV = 1 USD). However, the main problem was the fact that obtaining the URV was expensive as compared to using cruzerios reais, which is widely used in Brazil (1 URV = CR$ 2,750). The demand for the URV has only served to increase the exchange rate, and it is playing its part in the inflation that has plagued Brazil. (Blanchard, 54) Implementing a free-floating exchange rate will allow the currency to trade based on the conditions and regulations that are implemented in the market. The advantage is that the exchange rate will be stabilized by these market forces hence serve to regulate the exchange in the best interest of the market. However, the major disadvantage is that, excess freedom in the market, may encourage cartels to manipulate the exchange rate to their advantage, which may inconvenience other players in the market. Implementing both fixed and free-floating exchange rate mechanisms would be the ideal setting for the market. There should be freedom in the market that will allow the market to determine the suitable exchange rate for the operations of the market (Lagassa, 98). The

3.Deaths and serious injuries at work could be cut dramatically if the Essay

3.Deaths and serious injuries at work could be cut dramatically if the penalties for breaches in the legislation were higher and individual managers and direct - Essay Example of injuries and deaths that could happen in a industry, as well as the reasons why the injury and deaths happen, how can it be addressed and finally what are the changes that will be visible, if the causes are addressed. Unison of humans with an urge to usher an organization into a leading ‘utopia’ will be a successful endeavor, if the humans show unified, undaunted, unabated and unabashed conduct. And, if all the ‘parts’ of an organization, which include the workers and the departments, conduct this way, they can be fully utilized to have ubiquitous presence all over the world. So, it is similar, to how all the body parts or organs function unison ly to help a human survive, study, search, succeed etc. But, ironically when the body parts of the worker itself gets affected including the physical body and the mental part, due to the events that take places inside an organization or in a workplace, then the concept of unison will be unfulfilled. This could happen when the tragedies of injury and death takes place in the workplace. Nichols (1997) has shown how the term ‘industrial injuries’ should be preferred to the term ‘industrial accidents’ since variations in their rates are not random, but vary with determinant conditions, particularly with changes in the intensification of labour. The injury and the resultant death can be classified into four types aaccording to the nature of the injury. That is, how the injury or death happened is crucial and based on the frequency of the injury and death, it is classified. The classification comprises of injury and death due to fall from heights, injury and death that happens when workers are struck by moving or falling objects, likewise by moving vehicle and finally by the trapping that takes place due to collapse and overturning. â€Å"There is a small but important corpus of work on the sociology and social history of industrial injury and illness† (Bloor 2002). From the table given, one can understand