Q

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This article is about the Latin alphabet letter. For other uses, see Q (disambiguation).

Look up Q, q in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

OSI basic 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

The letter Q is the seventeenth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is cue, occasionally spelled cu (both pronounced /kju/).

1 History
2 Usage
3 Codes for computing
4 Meanings for Q
- 4.1 In entertainment
5 Trivia
6 See also

[edit] History

Egyptian hieroglyph wj	Phoenician Q	Etruscan Q	Greek Qoppa
<hiero>V24</hiero>	Image:PhoenicianQ-01.png	Image:EtruscanQ-01.png	Image:GreekQ-01.png

The Semitic sound value of Qôp (perhaps originally qaw cord, and possibly based on an Egyptian hieroglyph) was /q/ (voiceless uvular plosive), a sound common to Semitic languages, but not found in English or most Indo-European ones. In Greek, this sign as Qoppa Ϙ probably came to represent several labialized velar plosives, among them /kʷ/ and /kʷʰ/. As a result of later sound shifts, these sounds in Greek changed to /p/ and /pʰ/ respectively. Therefore, Qoppa was transformed into two letters: Qoppa, which stood for a number only, and Phi Φ which stood for the aspirated sound /pʰ/ that came to be pronounced /f/ in Modern Greek. The Etruscans used Q only in conjunction with V to represent /kʷ/.

[edit] Usage

In most modern western languages written in Latin script, such as in Romance and Germanic languages, Q appears almost exclusively in the digraph QU, though see: Q without U. In English this digraph most often denotes the cluster /kw/, except in borrowings from French where it represents /k/ as in plaque. In Italian qu represents [kw] (where [w] is an allophone of /u/); in German, /kv/; and in French, Portuguese language, Occitan, Spanish, and Catalan, /k/. (In Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan and French, qu replaces c for /k/ before front vowels i and e, since in those contexts c is a fricative and letter 'k' is seldom used outside loan words.) In the Aymara, Azeri, Uzbek, Quechua, and Tatar languages, Q is a voiceless uvular plosive. [q] is also used in IPA for the voiceless uvular plosive, as well as in most transliteration schemes of Semitic languages for the "emphatic" qōp sound.

In Maltese and Võro, Q denotes the glottal stop.

In Chinese Hanyu Pinyin and Albanian, Q is used to represent the sound [tɕʰ], which is close to English "ch" in "cheese".

Q is rarely seen in a word without a U next to it, thus making it the second most rarely used letter in the English Language

The lowercase Q is usually written as a lowercase O with a line below it, with or without a "tail". It is usually typed without due to the major difference between the tails of the lowercase G and lowercase Q. It is usually written with the tail to distinguish from the G. Unlike the written lowercase G, which has a leftward facing tail, the Q's tail faces right.

[edit] Codes for computing

Alternative representations for Q

NATO phonetic		Morse code
Quebec		––·–
Image:ICS Quebec.svg	Image:Semaphore Quebec.svg	Image:ASL Quebec.png	Image:Braille Q.svg
Signal flag	Semaphore	ASL Manual	Braille

In Unicode the capital Q is codepoint U+0051 and the lowercase q is U+0071.

The ASCII code for capital Q is 81 and for lowercase q is 113; or in binary 01010001 and 01110001, correspondingly.

The EBCDIC code for capital Q is 216 and for lowercase q is 152.

The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "Q<tt>" and "<tt>q" for upper and lower case respectively.

[edit] Meanings for Q

In astronomy,
- Q stands for an August 16 through 31 discovery, in the provisional designation of a comet (e.g. C/2004 Q2, Comet Machholz) or asteroid (e.g. (4123) 1986 QP₁).
- q stands for the perihelion distance of an orbit (mostly for cometary orbits).
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 chemistry, Q is a symbol for the reaction quotient.
In chess, Q is a notation symbol for the queen piece
In computing:
- Q is an "equational programming language"; see Q programming language.
- Q is the runtime component of the QSDK.
- Q is a Mac OS X emulator of a multitude of operating systems, including Windows; see Q (emulator).
- <q></q> is an HTML element used to indicate that a given string is a quotation.
In cosmology, q is the symbol for the deceleration parameter.
In electrical engineering:
- Q is a symbol for characterizing electronic filters and other resonant systems; see Q factor. Q stands for quality.
- Q represents electric charge, as in physics.
- In QAM modulation schemes, Q is used to refer to the quadrature communications channel.
  - In the YIQ colorspace commonly used with the NTSC television encoding scheme, q is the color-difference channel which is in quadrature with the subcarrier.
In English, Q can be an abbreviation for 'question', as in Q&A and FAQ.
In finance, Q is the U.S. ticker symbol for Qwest Communications International Inc.
In laser physics, Q is quality-factor
In international licence plate codes, Q stands for Qatar.
In Financial economics q stands for Tobin's-q.
In marketing, Q is sometimes used as a synonym for Q Score
In mathematics, blackboard bold <math>\mathbb{Q}</math> denotes the set of all rational numbers, while q is sometimes used as a variable standing for a single arbitrary prime number that is somehow larger than a prime number p. For example, <math>q = 2p + 1</math> and <math>2 \leq p < q</math>.
- In Mathematica, the Q in a command of the form PropertyQ[argument] means that the built-in function is a Boolean function that tests whether or not the argument has the named property. For example, IntegerQ[4] and PrimeQ[7] are both true. Some users use this convention for custom functions they create, for example, eisensteinIntegerQ[4 + 7ω] and safePrimeQ[47].
In mechanical engineering and civil engineering, Q is the symbol for volumetric flow rate.
In medicine, Q is 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 (lowercase) 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 a British music magazine; see Q magazine
In radiotelegraphy and amateur radio, the Q code is a set of three-letter code signals.
In Scientology, Q refers to a "common denominator" of subsidiary information which forms a "pyramid of data" (from Scientology 0-8).
In statistics, the Q Test helps in the decision to retain or discard questionable datum.
In Taiwan Mandarin or Taiwanese language, Q means "flexible." especially for food (the Roman letter is used).
In television, Q TV is a music video channel from the same people who produce Q magazine.
In economics, Q is usually used to represent quantity.
Q is an acronym for queue, which some people think is the letter's name.
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 is another name of the Panasonic Q multimedia console, a hybrid of a DVD player and a GameCube.
Q is the nickname for Quentin Richardson.
Q is the commonly used abbreviation for the Greek telecom operator Q-telecom
Q is an IRC-service (bot) on the popular IRC-network QuakeNet.

[edit] In entertainment

In music, Q is a three piece rock band from London, UK; see Q (the band).
In film, Q is a character in the James Bond series; see Q (James Bond).
In science fiction, Q is a character from the Q Continuum (also referred to as "the Q"), originally played by John de Lancie in several Star Trek spin-off series; see Q (Star Trek).
In British television, Q is a character (Nancy "Q" Cunard de Longchamps) portrayed by Rula Lenska from the BBC series the Rock Follies.
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 nickname of writer Ilya Kutuzov.
- Q is the nickname of entertainment impresario Quincy Jones.
- Q is the leading character in the famous Chinese novel The 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 video games, Q is a character in Capcom's Street Fighter series of fighting games.
Q was the name for a number of comedy series written by and starring Spike Milligan
Q is a 1983 movie about Quetzalcoatl in Manhattan

[edit] Trivia

Q is the only letter that does not appear in any US state name
People connected to an IRC-network with usermode +q are immune to bans, kicks and akicks.

[edit] See also

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List of English words containing Q not followed by U

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 & Digit-letter combinations
								Q0	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5	Q6	Q7	Q8	Q9
								0Q	1Q	2Q	3Q	4Q	5Q	6Q	7Q	8Q	9Q