And even with all these warts, K&R C is a good start for learning or re-learning C IMO. To grok C you don't need to know the exact syntax. You only need to realize that everything is either a byte sequence or a pointer to a byte sequence... represented by a byte sequence. This includes obvious things like arrays or "strings" or structs or unions, but also functions themselves. Once you internalize this you know C. Of course you'd also have to learn another language: the C preprocessor, but it's relatively small and only a few of its instructions would be needed to make productive use of it. So don't get hung up on the outdates syntax, and instead just read the book. You can probably buy a used copy for a few bucks or borrow it from your local library, then spend an evening reading it.