_K_ never comes before _a_, _o_, _u_, or before a consonant. It is used before _e_, _i_, _y_, where _c_ would, according to the English analogy, be liable to be sounded as _s_; as in _kept_, _king_, _skirt_. These words, if written _cept_, _cing_, _scirt_, would run the risk of being sounded _sept_, _sing_, _sirt_. Broadly speaking, _k_ is never {196} used except where _c_ would be inconvenient. The reason of this lies in the fact of there being no such letter as _k_ in the Latin language. Hence arose in the eyes of the etymologist the propriety of retaining, in all words derived from the Latin (_crown_, _concave_, _concupiscence_, &c.), the letter _c_, to the exclusion of _k_. Besides this, the Anglo-Saxon alphabet, being taken from the Roman, excluded _k_, so that _c_ was written even before the small vowels, _a_, _e_, _i_, _y_; as _cyning_, or _cining_, _a king_. _C_ then supplants _k_ upon etymological grounds only. In the languages derived from the Latin this dislike to the use of _k_ leads to several orthographical inconveniences. As the tendency of _c_, before _e_, _i_, _y_, to be sounded as _s_ (or as a sound allied to _s_), is the same in those languages as in others; and as in those languages, as in others, there frequently occur such sounds as _kit_, _ket_, _kin_, &c., a difficulty arises as to the spelling. If spelt _cit_, _cet_, &c., there is the risk of their being sounded _sit_, _set_. To remedy this, an _h_ is interposed--_chit_, _chet_, &c. This, however, only substitutes one difficulty for another, since _ch_ is, in all probability, already used with a different sound, _e.g._, that of _sh_, as in French, or that of _k_ guttural, as in German. The Spanish orthography is thus hampered. Unwilling to spell the word _chimera_ (pronounced _kimera_) with a _k_; unable to spell it with either _c_ or _ch_, it writes the word _quimaera_. This distaste for _k_ is an orthographical prejudice. Even in the way of etymology it is but partially advantageous, since in the other Gothic languages, where the alphabet is less rigidly Latin, the words that in English are spelt with a _c_, are there written with _k_,--_kam_, German; _komme_, Danish; _skrapa_, Swedish;=_came_, _come_, _scrape_. The use of _k_ final, as in _stick_, &c., has been noticed in p. 194. "_Skeptic_, for so it should be written, not _sceptic_."--_Johnson._ Quoted for the sake of adding authority to the statement made in p. 193, _viz._, that the Greek _kappa_ is to be represented not by _c_, but by _k_. "_K_ is never doubled, but _c_ is used before it to shorten the vowel by a double consonant, as _c[)o]ckle_, _p[)i]ckle_."--_Johnson._ {197} This is referable to the statement that _k_ is never used where _c_ is admissible.