Atlantic Canada Tales by Mike Bozart - HTML preview

Charles of Charlottetown

by Mike Bozart

© 2024 Mike Bozart

“Choose a language-related topic for a persuasive piece of writing. Nothing too long – I’m not looking for literary essays or longwinded legal briefs – keep it around 750 words; 850

words max, only if you truly need to further expound or clarify. Make it a cogent argument for a beneficial change.

Well, that’s your assignment. Have a great holiday recess, and I will see you back here in 17 days.” Jack Marc Collinswratch VI, the 53-year-old, 9th-grade, goateed English teacher, then sat back down at his desk. The Queen Charlotte Intermediate School dismissal bell rang seven seconds later. He sure knows the start/stop times. Bet he has them set on his smartphone, and I bet he got a pulse-vibration alert on his left thigh at the 15-seconds-remaining mark. 3:2 odds.

Fifteen-year-old, precocious, solitary, still-girl-shy, Shanghai immigrant Charles Chu thought about a subject to write about as he commenced his 1.4 km (.87 mi.) bicycle trek back to his family’s modest Mayflower apartment. The December 22nd (2023) Friday afternoon was mostly sunny, though considerably windy, and decidedly frigid as he set off on his 7-speed in the bike lane on North River Road.

Soon he was passing vacant Simmons Sports Field. Upon making a right turn onto Kirkwood Drive, his mind meandered back to school. So, mister teacher wants something language-related. Hmmm … How about the English alphabet. Yeah, but what about it? What to change?

Standardize all the diphthongs? No. Too messy. And too complicated. What then? Hmmm …

He then gloved-hand-signaled and turned left onto tranquil Trafalgar Street, which was devoid of traffic. He continued to ponder his writing assignment . Oh, I know – and this is ingeniously sly – well, maybe (not!): select a letter for removal from the alphabet. I’m sure there’s one letter whose absence could be covered by two or more letters. Must be a consonant. Could G or J be scrapped? They’re similar; though, J is much rarer. Or, might X be the one to axe? Or, Q? A KW digraph could replace QU. Though, there are some lone-Q-ending words. Hmmm …

Charles then made a right turn onto Nassau Street. Just as he passed Dunkirk Street and came up on the winter-barren soccer fields of Spring Park Sports Field, a meta-candescent light went off in his head. No, don’t choose G, J, or X; pick C!

Yeah, it seems that C is the best choice for relegation. C is

either impersonating K or S. Well, for the most part. Thus, C

it will be. ‘Sorry, C – I C U later.’ [internal guffaw]

He then made a left turn onto Queen Street. In 100 meters (328 feet), he was safely home. He locked the bike to a hidden rack and walked up to the front door.

“How was your day, son?” his 39-year-old mother asked.

“Good,” Charles answered as he kept walking towards his bedroom. “I’m going to start on my homework while the idea is fresh in my mind. It’s a challenging writing assignment.”

“Ok, son, I won’t disturb you. Your dad should be home around 5:30. He’s picking up your favorite homestyle

[Chinese] takeout.”

“Oh, great! I just want to jot down a rough draft, or maybe just a notated outline. It shouldn’t take that long.”

Charles would have the first draft completed by Sunday afternoon, Christmas Eve.

On Monday afternoon, January 8th, 2024, Charles submitted the following:

Re: The Elimination of the Letter C from the English Alphabet The English alphabet currently has 26 letters, down from 27

in 1835 when the ampersand symbol was dropped – yes, ‘&’

was an actual ‘letter’ – some interesting trivia there; the Classical Latin – and Ye Olde English – alphabet had 23; the Etruscan alphabet, 21. Twenty-six letters is certainly not an overwhelming amount, especially compared to the 20,000+

Hanzi characters used in Chinese. But, could one of these Roman letters be banished? The answer is, surprisingly, a resounding yes! It turns out that the letter C can be dropped.

If you are shocked, well, so was I, as my first and last names begin with C. Also, the name of our fine city begins with C.

Ok, without further ado I’ll begin making my case, or ‘kase’

the spelling should soon be, as the letter C’s retirement is nigh. The reasons why the letter C kan, and should, be eliminated from the English alphabet are enumerated below.

Now, please don’t have a konniption if your name begins with, or kontains, that 78.5% of an oval letter: C; this is merely a quasi-strategik exersise. And just relax; it’s not that komplikated; it’s not rokket siense!

• Hard C:

o Words beginning with a hard C, such as ‘cat’, can easily have the hard C replaced by a K

(kat).

o Words ending with a hard C, such as ‘tarmac’, can easily have the hard C replaced by a K

(tarmak).

o Words that have a hard C in the middle, such as ‘fractal’, can easily have the interior hard C

replaced by a K (fraktal).

o Words that have a double C in the middle, such as ‘staccato’, can easily have the CC

changed to a double K (stakkato).

o Words that have the -ing or -ed suffix following CK, such as ‘panicking’ and ‘frolicked’, can have the CK changed to KK (panikking, frolikked). [“The spelling will grow on you; just give it some time – weeks, months, years.”]

• Soft C: Words with a soft C, such as ‘city’ and

‘finance’, can have the soft C changed to S (sity, finanse). [“She sent in her last sent.”]

• Digraphs CL and CR: Words that begin with or contain the CL and/or CR digraph, such as ‘clear’ and

‘crass’, will have KL and KR replacements, respectively (klear, krass).

• Digraph CK: Words that end with, or contain, CK, such as ‘brick’ and ‘spackle’, can easily have the CK

changed to KK (brikk, spakkle). [“Are we now in Amsterdam?” <cough>]

• Digraph CH (hard): Words with the hard CH digraph, such as ‘march’ and ‘change’, could be replaced with a new KH digraph (markh, khange).

• Digraph CH (soft): Words with a soft CH digraph, such as ‘charlatan’, can easily have the CH replaced by SH (sharlatan). Though, Charlottetown, like all proper nouns, could be allowed to keep its current spelling. [“Sign replacement would be too expensive.”]

• Digraph CI: Words with a CI digraph, such as

‘financial’, shall be replaced with SH (finanshal). [“Are we now in southern Asia?”]

• Digraph SC (hard): Words with this digraph, such as

‘scandal’, shall be replaced with SK (skandal).

• Digraph SC (where the C is silent): Words with this digraph, such as ‘scene’ will have the C deleted and not replaced by any letter (sene). [“Hey everyone, I just sent in my last sent without a sent; one less odorless penny on the oak dresser.”]

• Trigraph SCH (hard): Words containing the hard SCH

trigraph, such as ‘school’, will be replaced with SK

(skool). [“Changing the spelling of ‘school’ to ‘skool’ is tantamount to heresy!”]

• Trigraph SCH (soft): Words containing the soft SCH

trigraph, such as ‘antipasch’, will have the C removed (antipash) [“Yes, even on a low Sunday.”]

• Trigraph SCR: Words containing the SCR trigraph, such as ‘scream’, will be replaced with SKR (skream).

• Trigraph TCH: Words with a TCH trigraph, such as

‘match’, shall be replaced with TKH (matkh). [“Woah!

Where are we now? This looks eerily familiar. Who in the world is sponsoring this krazy initiative?”]

• Trigraph CTI: Words containing the CTI trigraph, such as ‘traction’, shall be replaced with KSH (trakshon).

Konklusion: We kan do this. Inkrementally. I will stop using the letter C. You, ever-klever reader, will also stop using the letter C. Next, he does. And then she does. Then they do. A kritikal mass is akhieved. There’s a tipping point. This will surely put Sharlottetown, whoops, I mean Charlottetown (speshal exseption), bakk in the katbird seat: the resurgense of the Birthplase of Konfederation. Sure, there will be resistanse; there always is to things that shake up the stale, stagnant, stratified status quo. There’s no avoiding it.

Akademia will be having a major hissee fit. We should be prepared for hate mail. Nonetheless, we will gain ground, day by day. Letter by non-C letter. “Quikk! Mashine-manufakture those krushal letter-C-deletion kampaign broshures!”

His English teacher’s written reply: Kharles, I doubt this would ever fly in Québek – or London – but PEI (Prinse Edward Island) is unique. Lokal paper-airplane dissemination? Then blitz the internet? When?

Exsel ent! A+

[800 mots]

- Jakk Mark Kol inswratkh VI

another pSecret pSociety pshort pstory

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Monticia of Moncton by Mike Bozart (Agent 33) | mid-May 2024