Q

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

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:]).

Contents

1 History
2 Usage
3 Codes for computing
4 Meanings for Q

4.1 In entertainment

5 Q trivia
6 See also

History

Egyptian hieroglyph wj	Phoenician Q	Etruscan Q	Greek Qoppa
V24

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, symbolizing thus a /kʷ/. Some scholars claim that Q and Phi are unrelated.

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 makes the /k/ sound as in plaque. In Italian qu is [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 the 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".

Codes for computing

Alternative representations for

NATO phonetic		Morse code
Quebec		[––·–]

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" and "q" for upper and lower case respectively.

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).
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 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 [\mathbb] 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, [q = 2p + 1] and [2 \leq p < q].
* 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 Taiwanese Mandarin slang, Q means "flexible." (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
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.

In entertainment

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 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 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 1982 movie about Quetzalcoatl in Manhattan

Q 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.
In the English alphabet, Q is the least used letter while E is the most frequent.

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