It sounds like something that would ease the combining of ingredients/components. Like an emulsifier but more general. “An emulsifier is a combigent for oil and water”

It wasn’t always this weird but C spent too much time hanging out with E and I and they started to influence C. “Ke” and “ki” became “kye” and “kyi” and eventually “che” and “chi” then in some places it turned to “she” and “shi” then “se” and “si”. Now we even have “the” and “thi” in some Spanish dialects.

History is kind of the opposite. When someone says they like history I’ll get excited and ask what period is their favorite. If they say “Romans” without any qualifiers like Early Republic or Late Eastern Empire, I get a bad feeling and they usually follow up with “and WWII”