third letter of the alphabet. Alphabetic writing came to Rome via the southern Etruscan "Caeretan" script, in which gamma was written as a crescent. Early Romans made little use of Greek kappa and used gamma for both the "g" and "k" sounds, the latter more frequently, so that the "k" sound came to be seen as the proper one for gamma. To restore a dedicated symbol for the "g" sound, a modified gamma was introduced c. 250 B.C.E. as G. In classical Latin -c- has only the value "k," and thus it passed to Celtic and, via Irish monks, to Anglo-Saxon, where -k- was known but little used.
In Old French, many "k" sounds drifted to "ts" and by 13c., "s," but still were written with a -c-. Thus the 1066 invasion brought to the English language a more vigorous use of -k- and a flood of French and Latin words in which -c- represented "s" (as in cease, ceiling, circle). By 15c. native English words with -s- were being respelled with -c- for "s" (as in ice, mice, lice). In some words from Italian, meanwhile, the -c- has a "ch" sound (a sound evolution in Italian that parallels the Old French one).
双语例句
1. You can buy a formulation containing royal jelly, pollen and vitamin C.
可以买一种含蜂王浆、花粉和维生素C的配方产品。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Howe carefully cultivated Daniel C. Roper, the Assistant Postmaster General.
豪谨慎地和邮政副部长丹尼尔·C.罗珀拉近关系。
来自柯林斯例句
3. He was put on a high dosage of vitamin C.
给他服了大剂量的维生素C。
来自柯林斯例句
4. One of the wittiest exemplars of the technique was M. C. Escher.
最为巧妙地运用那种技巧的一个典型人物就是M.C.埃舍尔。
来自柯林斯例句
5. Vitamin C helps to detoxify pollutants in the body.
