Hello probonopublico and thank you for your qestion (sic)
Well, for a start think of the environmental issues. Newspaper ink is
95% carbon which is produced by burning hydrocarbons,
http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Chemistry/Original/c00006d.html
By dropping the letter U we could be saving thousands of lives a year.
"Pigment for newspaper ink still comes from benzene, toluene,
naphthalene, and other benzene ring hydrocarbons which may be quite
harmful to human health if accumulated in the food chain."
http://www.weblife.org/humanure/chapter3_12.html
Another reason (or not) to drop the 'U' is that it would rationalise
the English language, much as the North Americans have already done
Colour=Color etc....
There are already some words that do not have the U after the Q and I
qote:
"qanat underground tunnel for carrying irrigation water
qat leaves chewed or brewed in tea as a stimulant
qigong system of Chinese meditational exercises
qintar Albanian unit of currency
qiviut wool of the undercoat of a musk-ox
qoph a Hebrew letter"
http://phrontistery.50megs.com/q.html
And according to "The Association of British Scrabble Players"
"BUQSHA~ QAID~ QI~ QOPH~ TALAQ~ UMIAQ~
BURQA~ QANAT~ QIBLA~ QWERTY~ TRANQ~ WAQF~
FAQIR~ QASIDA~ QIGONG~ QWERTIES TSADDIQ~ YAQONA~
INQILAB~ QAT~ QINDAR~ SHEQALIM TSADDIQIM
QABALAH~ QAWWAL~ QINTAR~ SHEQEL TZADDIQ~
QADI~ QAWWALI~ QIVIUT~ SUQ~ TZADDIQIM"
http://www.absp.org.uk/publications/beginner.html
==================================================
"BUSH ADDS QATAR TO ‘AXIS OF MISSPELLING’
"Demands That Outlaw Nation Insert a ‘U’ Into Its Name
In a resolute speech to the nation today, President Bush identified
Qatar as one of a group of nations that are willfully misspelling
their names.
In his speech, the President said that Qatar joins such other
intentionally misspelled nations as Kyrgyzstan in “an axis of
misspelling."
http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=35
===================================================
Some things to bear in mind:
When you are in the post office waiting to collect your lottery
winnings would you be standing in a qeue ?
and what about Her Majesty, could we really call her the Qeen?
===================================================
"Why is the letter Q always follwed by the letter U in the english
language?
Well, first of all, letters are part of the writing system for
English, not
part of the English language. Languages are based on sounds (except
for the
sign languages used by deaf people) and not letters.
And Q is always followed by U because the English writing system
declares it
must be that way. It is purely arbitrary. In Old English (ca. ad.
450 to
ca. ad. 1150) the same /kw/ sound was written CW. The word "queen"
was
spelled "cwene." In Middle Scots, a northern dialect of Middle
English (ca.
1150 to ca. 1450), QU or QUH were used to spell the sounds at the
beginnings
of words like "what" and "why", e.g., "quhat" and "quhy." The point
is that
as long as we have a reasonably consistent system, it does not matter.
Hope this answers part of your question."
http://www.linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-1997.7/msg00102.html
===================================================
Thank you for your qestion, and if you have any qeries regarding my
answer do not hesitate to ask for a qick reqest for clarification.
Very best regards
THX1138
Search strategy:
Q
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&as_qdr=all&q=q&btnG=Google+Search |
