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Q: The Letter 'U' after 'Q' in the English Language ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   1 Comment )
Question  
Subject: The Letter 'U' after 'Q' in the English Language
Category: Miscellaneous
Asked by: probonopublico-ga
List Price: $2.00
Posted: 25 Mar 2003 11:58 PST
Expires: 24 Apr 2003 12:58 PDT
Question ID: 180821
Please qantify (sic) the benefits of dropping the letter 'U' after 'Q' in
the English language.
Answer  
Subject: Re: The Letter 'U' after 'Q' in the English Language
Answered By: thx1138-ga on 25 Mar 2003 13:54 PST
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
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
probonopublico-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars and gave an additional tip of: $2.00
Many thanks, thx1138.

You have excelled, as always.

From now on, it is proclaimed that, for environmental reasons, the 'U'
after 'Q' is hereby outlawed.

I shall see the Qeen at the first opportunity.

There's qite a lot of them here in Brighton.

Kindest Regards

Bryan

Comments  
Subject: Re: The Letter 'U' after 'Q' in the English Language
From: ravuri-ga on 25 Mar 2003 23:37 PST
 
Some of the evidence presented above actually works against the
argument.

The Hebrew letter which the scholars may spell "qoph" is pronounced
"koof." Similarly, the Scrabble words above that are Hebrew --
TSADDIQ, TSADDIQIM, SHEQEL, SHEQALIM, and QABALAH -- are all
pronounced as "k" and not "kw" (there's no "w" sound in Hebrew).

I'm guessing that the other words on that Scrabble list are also
pronounced "k." If that's true, the very reason they're written "q"
and not "qu" is to indicate that they're different from regular "qu"
words which are pronounced "kw."

If you want to remove the "u" from words spelled "qu" and pronounced
"kw," you'll need to find a way to indicate a different pronunciation
in words that are now spelled "q" and pronounced "k."

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