The letter Q has me baffled. I have been thinking of topics with letter Q to write about in my blog but every word has me stumped after two sentences. I have been able to get neither quality nor quantity!

Q as a letter is quite unique in itself. Almost always paired with U, it seldom comes alone. Now, that’s a partnership to look up to. Q and U, who is wooing whom?

Q is the second least used letter out of the 26 in the English alphabet. So , naturally when you have to think of things with Q, the brain gets baffled. I mean, at least my brain didn’t give me any quick answers.

Looking at Q from a phonics point of view, Q comes as a combination of the sounds /k/ and /w/ like in quote, quick, quality; or as /k/ like in cheque, unique, opaque.

I had to write with Q for the #BlogchatterAtoZ 2023 and I have been stuck on this alphabet. From Queen to Quetta to Quiver Full of Arrows, I started about half a dozen posts and left them after a few lines. I even thought about writing on the Queen of England, having finished Bridgerton Season 2 just now, but then dropped that idea too.

Then I thought, why not write about the queen letter Q itself? Q is elusive, likes only U and gave me a particularly hard time at Name, Place, Animal, Things (I always went with Queen, Quetta, Quail, Quilt).

The phrase quid pro quo definitely has some Q in it. It is Latin meaning ”this for that’. The idea is commonly expressed in English as ‘one good turn deserves another’. It has been in use in the English speaking world since the 16th century. One of the earlier examples of it in print is found in Erasmus’ Lytle Treatise Maner & Forme of Confession, 1535:

“Poticaries and phisions do more greuously offende, than do these persones now rehersed, which haue a prouerbe amonge them, quid pro quo, one thynge for another.“