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midnightsmum

Weekend Trivia -- Sunday

Happy Sunday Morning, Cottagers!! I am up early for me, off to see another house - let's hope this one suits!!

I love to play Scrabble, but don't often get a chance anymore. I'm not very good at it now, as it is a muscle that must be exercised!! According to the Scrabble Dictionary, there are 42 words in the English language that start with a 'q', but do not have a 'u' next. Hmmm...I didn't know that. I asked last week if anyone knew where the airline QANTAS got its name - it is actually an acronym, like SCUBA. It stands for Queensland and Northern Territories Air Service, quite a mouthful. So, where did the 'qu' start in our language? And what does the most recent 'q' word to enter our lexicon, qwerty, come from?? Hmmmm...this sounded like a really good idea earlier in the week, now I'm not sure it is a question worthy of our Cottagers.

I'll be back with clues, if you need them.

Nancy.

Comments (20)

  • thinman
    11 years ago

    Hmmmm. Qwerty. I feel like the answer is right in front of me...

    Don't know about the qu question. When you say where, are you looking for a place, like another country, or ...?

    TM

  • midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Hey Tm - why it is in front of you!! I knew that would be too easy!! I am looking for a place/s or language/s.

    Nancy.

  • aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
    11 years ago

    Qwerty, what the heck is qwerty... then I looked down LOL.

    Annette

  • cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
    11 years ago

    Well, I think I know this. Husband, son, and I all studied a certain language. Did you know Gaul is divided into three parts? :)

    Cynthia

  • midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Go east, Cyn!!

    Nancy.

  • cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
    11 years ago

    Not saying that is the place! The phrase is the important clue. Is that right? I will say it in its original language if you want (not French).

    Cynthia

  • midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    OK, missed your intention!!

    Just for fun:

    Here is a list of all the words with Q without U : http://www.scrabblecheat.org/word-list/q

    There are 42 words :

    2 Letters
    QI

    3 Letters
    QIS SUQ QAT

    4 Letters
    QADI QOPH SUQS QAID QATS

    5 Letters
    UMIAQ QAIDS QADIS QOPHS BURQA TRANQ QANAT FAQIR

    6 Letters
    QINDAR QIVIUT UMIAQS SHEQEL QWERTY TRANQS QINTAR BUQSHA BURQAS FAQIRS QABALA QANATS

    7 Letters
    BUQSHAS SHEQELS QABALAH QINDARS QWERTYS QABALAS QIVIUTS QINTARS

    8 Letters
    QABALAHS MBAQANGA QINDARKA SHEQALIM

    9 Letters
    MBAQANGAS
    Source(s):
    http://www.scrabblecheat.org

    Nancy.

  • cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
    11 years ago

    You know, I would love to use those for Scrabble, but to me, they are all really foreign words that have been accepted into English and we often spell them differently as in Chi instead of Qi. Buqshas is Yemeni currency, so to me that isn't English any more than if someone there used the word quarter or dime and said it was a Yemeni word. Who makes up these Scrabble rules? ;)

    When I am teaching students to decode words and learn the sounds of English, q is the chicken letter-it is afraid to go anywhere (in English) without the u. Maybe I need to modify that!

    This is a fun question, though! Not criticizing-just curious and have always wondered about this one in particular (among others, being someone who loves language and words). Oh, and I do know qwerty. sometimes, I hit something wrong on my phone and lose it!

    Cynthia

  • midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    OK, missed your intention!!

    Just for fun:

    Here is a list of all the words with Q without U : http://www.scrabblecheat.org/word-list/q

    There are 42 words :

    2 Letters
    QI

    3 Letters
    QIS SUQ QAT

    4 Letters
    QADI QOPH SUQS QAID QATS

    5 Letters
    UMIAQ QAIDS QADIS QOPHS BURQA TRANQ QANAT FAQIR

    6 Letters
    QINDAR QIVIUT UMIAQS SHEQEL QWERTY TRANQS QINTAR BUQSHA BURQAS FAQIRS QABALA QANATS

    7 Letters
    BUQSHAS SHEQELS QABALAH QINDARS QWERTYS QABALAS QIVIUTS QINTARS

    8 Letters
    QABALAHS MBAQANGA QINDARKA SHEQALIM

    9 Letters
    MBAQANGAS
    Source(s):
    http://www.scrabblecheat.org

    Nancy.

  • midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Well, that's weird - I refreshed my screen and got a double posting 2 hours apart - wooow.

    Nancy.

  • mnwsgal
    11 years ago

    As I was typing qwerty it became obvious what it means so erased my earlier draft.

    We are going to dinner for our Christmas with our kids tonight. Will see if they know the qu. They love words and have read some books recently about language so maybe. My competitive scrabble playing DH does not know. Will check in again later.

  • cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
    11 years ago

    Fun Bobbie. Have a wonderful time. Quo vadis? A restaurant or someone's home?

    Cynthia

  • mnwsgal
    11 years ago

    I was told that the qu comes from the interpretation of words from a country dear to Cynthia's heart. I would have guessed Latin as know much of English language is Latin based.

    We were to have had dinner here but our laundry room drain in the basement overflowed yesterday so we moved it to a Chinese restaurant where we saw another group with Christmas bags at a nearby table. I snaked the drain and it seems to be working but was a mess to clean up. Fortunately the washer was on small load.

  • midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Oh, Bobbie - no fun, Chinese food sounds like a yummy Plan B!

    Well, qwerty I threw in for fun, because it took a while for the light to dawn for me!! And I would have thought it a recent word, with the android, touch screen phones, and I would have been wrong!! lol. QWERTY is the most common modern-day keyboard layout. The name comes from the first six letters (keys) appearing in the top left letter row of the keyboard, read left to right: Q-W-E-R-T-Y. The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to Remington in the same year, when it first appeared in typewriters. It became popular with the success of the Remington No. 2 of 1878, and remains in use on electronic keyboards due to the network effect of a standard layout and a belief that alternatives fail to provide very significant advantages. The use and adoption of the QWERTY keyboard is often viewed as one of the most important case studies in open standards because of the widespread, collective adoption and use of the product, particularly in the United States. There's a nugget to throw out at your next cocktail party!!

    As to 'qu', I have always been curious about this, and would have thought, and probably have been told, that no English words starts with 'q' without a 'u'. But English is a street urchin, with many fathers, as it were. Actually english words are from Latin and Greek for the most part, and the words that aren't QU really aren't English words, but are mostly Arabic or Muslim words that we have incorporated into our language here in America, such as "burqa". And unusually for me, a simple answer. I have put a funny link below, but there is also a great documentary called the History of English.

    Thanks for playing, I'll see you all next week!!

    Nancy.

    Here is a link that might be useful: History of the English Language

  • cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
    11 years ago

    What? No stars? Gee whiz. I was sure I had it with my "Quo vadis" reference.

    Great question Nancy. Sometimes, I hit a symbol on my phone by accident and end up with the French keyboard. Usually takes me a while to realize it since I can't type in any language actually-two fingers usually. ;)

    Thanks for the fun!
    Cynthia

  • midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Oh bother - I forgot the stars!!
    For Cyn:

    For Bobbie and Annette:
    for getting qwerty.

    I blame the air quality in this place - I think the furnace flue is coming back into the house - not nice. That plus the cheap fridge LL bought last year is dying, I really like the house we looked at Sunday am, so let's hope the new LL likes us and approves us!!

    Nancy.

  • mnwsgal
    11 years ago

    Lots of interesting info in the link you sent, Nancy. Amazing how much the English language has changed over the centuries.

    I've got lots of laundry to do today. Hope not to have a repeat of the drain problem.

  • midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Drat - I meant to also leave this link!!

    Here is a link that might be useful: History of the English Language

  • cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
    11 years ago

    I feel so much better. ;)

    Thanks Nancy.

    Hope all is well with the drains, Bobbie. No fun. We just had leaks in bathrooms fixed last week. I should have studied plumbing-much more lucrative than teaching!

    Cynthia

  • midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    lol -more lucrative than most careers.

    TM - I owed you a star, too - sorry!!

    Nancy - who found out that the downstairs neighbours were water-proofing their boots in the basement. I am the canary in the coal-mine.

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