DENVER, CO—It was a dark day on Tuesday of this week for the alphabet community after the well-known letter K was brought before a court to explain why it is still necessary for the English language.
Surrounded by reporters, sobbing while attempting to cover its serif, the letter K was led into the courtroom where it would be called upon to justify its existence. The court, made up of linguists and English professors, called K to testify after recent economic woes and budget cuts to schools have forced hard questions to be asked regarding how to keep the United States' education system competitive in the modern world. With 25 other letters all allegedly pulling their weight, the court was commissioned to reduce redundancies.
The question posed to letter K was straightforward: "Why are you necessary, with the letter C doing your job half of the time?"
Letter K hesitated at first, but spoke that it is often useful alongside C, or in cases where it might not be clear whether C was to make the same sound as K or the same sound as S, who is scheduled to appear before the court on Monday.
The panel of judges appeared to reject this logic, citing examples where C is perfectly acceptable making both sounds, such as in the word "cancer," and "cycle."
K became visibly agitated at this, and then cited its other uses in words such as knot, knock, knight, and others.
Of course, the panel quickly refuted this, as the K has no influence on the sound of the words, only in the meaning, thus making it useless when the words are spoken as opposed to in print.
K appeared desperate at this point, and pleaded with the court, suggesting it could take on other responsibilities, including taking over for C's role in the CH collaborative sound. "Why must two letters do the work that one can do?" K queried.
"Yes," replied one member of the panel, again directing K back to the original question. "Why, indeed?"
Although the ruling on K's future will not be decided until all of the further inquiries are held (expected completion in late August), for the time being, K is pleading with people to use it for words that would otherwise lose meaning when spelled out, such as "kite" rather than "cite."
Letter K was not entirely alone, however. Outside of the courtroom, and all over social media, the Krispie Kreme doughnut company, and women named Kristine have been adamant that losing the letter K would be detrimental to society.
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