THOUGHTFUL THURSDAYS: THE LETTER Q

How much do you know about the letter Q? Not much? Me neither.

I know it has a nearly monogamous relationship with U... but from time to time its eye will wander and you'll end up with a word like Qindarka. I know that there aren't tons of American names that begin with Q and that there are no states that begin with Q. But what are some of the more arcane mysteries of Q?

Wikipedia to the rescue... Here are some of the highlights:

*Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet... Well, you could've figured that out but I bet you didn't know off the top of your head

*Q was invented in 200 AD at the request of Noah's great-great-great-great-great grandson. Actually that's a complete and utter lie. Sorry.

*In Fijian, Q represents the pre-nasalized voiced velar plosive... Uh-huh.

*In Unicode the capital Q is codepoint U+0051 and the lower case q is U+0071.

Perhaps Q's greatest claim to fame is everyone's favorite game "Q&A." For those who haven't played, "Q&A" is a game with a single speaker on one team and a whole crowd of people on the other team. The crowd is responsible for the "Q" (which is said to stand for "Question) and the speaker is responsible for the "A" (answer). It's quite a match of wits, let me tell you.

Another place where the Q turns up is in the always helpful "FAQ" section of a website or publication. In this case the Q is frequently asked. You may wonder who does the frequent asking. No one actually. The author of the FAQ presumes the question's frequency most of the time. Having constructed many a FAQ in my day, I can say that the questions you put in the FAQ are mainly the ones you're sick of answering. Sometimes you're sick of them because people ask you three times a day, but other times perhaps only two or three people have ever asked you, yet the answer is just so damn annoying to recite again and again, that you put it up on the FAQ. Technically this is a MIQ (most infuriating question).

No more revelatory thoughts on Q at the moment. Next week we shall return with the letter X.