Q

From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.

Latin alphabet Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

Q is the 17th letter of the Latin alphabet.

The Semitic sound value of Qôp (perhaps originally qaw cord) was /q/ (voiceless uvular plosive). In Greek this sign (called Qoppa in Greek) probably came to represent several labialized velar plosives, among them /k_w/ and /k_w_h/. These sounds changed to /p/ and /p_h/ respectively. Therefore, Qoppa was transformed into two letters: Qoppa, which stood for a number only, and Φι (Phi) which stood for the aspirated sound /p_h/ that came to be pronounced /f/ in Modern Greek. The Etruscans used Q only in conjunction with V, symbolizing thus a /k_w/. Some scholars claim that Q and Phi are unrelated.

Contents

1 Usage 2 Meanings for Q 3 Q trivia 4 See also

Usage

In most modern languages, Q is rather superfluous; in Romance and Germanic languages it appears almost exclusively in the digraph QU. In English this digraph most often denotes the cluster /kw/, as it does in Italian (where [w] is an allophone of /u/); in German, /kv/; and in French, Spanish, and Catalan, /k/. (In Spanish and in French, ``qu replaces c for /k/ before the vowels i and e, since in those contexts ``c is a fricative.) In the Aymara, Azeri, Uzbek, Quechua, and Tatar languages, Q is pronounced the same as the Semitic sound /q/, and Q is often used to transliterate /q/ Semitic languages. In Maltese and Võro, Q denotes the glottal stop.

Quebec represents the letter Q in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

Meanings for Q

• In biblical criticism, Q is an abbreviation used by scholars of the New Testament to describe the Q document, a hypothetical lost written "source" (German, Quelle, hence, Q) behind the Synoptic Gospels.
• In biochemistry, Q is the symbol for glutamine.
• in chess, Q is a notation symbol for the queen piece
• In computing:
  • Q is the name of an "equational programming language"; see Q programming language.
  • Q is the runtime component of the QSDK.
• In engineering, Q is a symbol for characterizing filters; see Q factor. Q stands for quality.
• In English, Q can be an abbreviation for 'question'.
• In film, Q is a character in the James Bond series; see Q (James Bond) (see also: science fiction, below).
• in financial securities, Q is the stock symbol for Qwest Communications International Inc.
• In international licence plate codes, Q stands for Qatar.
• In Financial economics q stands for Tobin's-q.
• In literature,
  • Q is the title of a historical novel by Luther Blissett; see Q (novel).
  • Q is the pen name of writer Arthur Quiller-Couch.
  • Q is the leading character in the famous Chinese novel A True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun. Because of this novel, "Ah Q" in China means someone who always claims spiritual victory despite frequent defeat.
• In marketing, Q is sometimes used as a synonym for Q Score
• In mathematics, blackboard bold represents the rational numbers.
• In medicine, Q is the name of a bacterial infection; see Q fever. "q" also is a medical abbreviation for every, often used to specify drug dosing schedules (e.g., q6h indicates every 6 hours; q4w indicates 4 times per week).
• In military science, Q is the name for anti-submarine ships; see Q-ship.
• In phonetics, lowercase [q] is the International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for the voiceless uvular plosive.
• In physics, Q is a symbol for electric charge or heat.
• In fusion power, Q is the symbol for the fusion energy gain factor
• In a deck of playing cards, Q is used to mark each of the queens.
• In publishing, Q is the name of a British music magazine; see Q magazine
• In radiotelegraphy and amateur radio, the Q code is a set of three-letter code signals.
• In science fiction, Q is a character in several Star Trek spin-off series; see Q (Star Trek).
• In video games, Q is a character in Capcom's Street Fighter series of fighting games.
• Q was also the name for a number of comedy series written by and starring Spike Milligan
• Q is an acronym for queue
• In economics, Q is usually used to represent quantity.
• Q is an acronym for "queer", an appropriation of the historically pejorative word, now used neutrally or positively by those who strongly reject traditional gender identities.

Q trivia

• Q is the only letter that does not appear in any US state name
• The James Bond character Q (see Q (James Bond)) appears in every film except Live and Let Die

See also

Two-letter combinations Qa Qb Qc Qd Qe Qf Qg Qh Qi Qj Qk Ql Qm Qn Qo Qp Qq Qr Qs Qt Qu Qv Qw Qx Qy Qz QA QB QC QD QE QF QG QH QI QJ QK QL QM QN QO QP QQ QR QS QT QU QV QW QX QY QZ Letter-digit combinations Q0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9

af:Q

ca:Q cs:Q da:Qals:Q el:Q es:Q eo:Q fr:Q gl:Q ko:Q id:Q it:Q la:Q nl:Q ja:Q no:Q nn:Q pl:Q pt:Q ro:Q simple:Q sl:Q fi:Q sv:Q vi:Q yo:Q zh:Q sn:Q

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