The letter K

I love the letter K. It is of course the initial letter of my surname. Whether it is a capital or lower case it always says what it is; not like Aa which doesn't know whether it is a tent or a snail! When I started school there were no clues to aid children in their learning but I like the idea of K being the kicking cur! In those days everything was done by rote. Now you have to understand why things are. Arithmetic came easy as it was obvious that 7 eight's was the same as 8 sevens, because I had memorised all the multiplication tables up to 12. The best part of having a name starting with K was that you never got picked on first to present your work to class, even when the teacher reversed the order!

Letters were however different especially when it came to spelling. I used to be quite happy spelling words that I used even the difficult ones like there and their. But getting back to K the sad thing about this letter was that there were so few words starting with K. I liked the idea that may be it was an interloper, a letter that really belonged somewhere else and was an illegal immigrant and imposed itself into English. Sadly this is not true because English is a real stew pot of so many languages that K is no worse than any other. Curiously I never liked W or Q. What a couple of unnecessary letters they are! W in English pinches a couple of U's and gives itself airs. Curiously in French it is double-V, stealing V's instead! Q on the other hand takes lots of words that could be spelt with a K, which in my mind is crime, and sides with U sounding like a W to create a pathetic list of English words. Get rid of them both I say.

Why is K so good you will ask? Well for a Kaleidoscope of reasons really. For a start it is King sized, acts like a Knight and Knits in well with other letters. It has great Kudos, you can eat it in Kale, it can jump like a Kangaroo, it can make china with Kaolin, you can stuff a cushion with Kapok, it is good in defense with Karate, you can travel on rivers in a Kayak, you can eat a Kebab. Keys will keeps you safe, when you marry you can have Kids, and all your family are your Kith and Kin. Your kids can fly a Kite, you can eat Kippers which may be cut with a Knife in the Kitchen. When you Knock on a door you can open it with a Knob. Now ladies why not colour your eyelids with Kohl? Do you want a pet? Then have a Kitten.

Now you may think I am a bit Kinky about K but with all this effort I feel quite Knackered so I will blow you a Kiss and go and have a Kip.