Q is no longer unattractive

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

If it was ever true that "Q" struck people as unattractive, it seems no 
longer to be the case. Numerous new TMs make use of "q" -- I assume because it 
seems eye-catching and post-modern.

I thought this might have something to do with the rehabilitation of "Queer," 
and the use of "Queen" in popular music, but maybe it stems from the public's 
high regard for the exciting, long-lived reigning monarch of England. Doesn't 
everyone yearn to book passage on the QE2?

In a message dated 4/9/07 10:07:20 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:


> At 5:13 AM -0700 4/9/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >It is popularly believed in the ad and marketing industries that X
> >is the most interesting and enticing letter you can use (I never
> >spell "sex" without it.)  Contrariwise, Q is the least appealing.
> >
> >   So always try to use an X and avoid a Q. If you can suggest some
> >appealing word with it, like "sex" or luxury" (but definitely not
> >"tax" or "Xerxes"
> 
> Or "X-ray"
> 
> >), so much the better.
> >
> I haven't seen anyone opine in that manner on "Q".  The early papers
> by linguists on trade names --one classic is
> Pound, Louise (1913). Word-coinage and modern trade names. Dialect
> Notes 4: 29-41.
> --tend to focus on the appeal of x's and k's (Kodak, kotex, xerox,
> etc.)*, but don't mention Q one way or the other.  I'd assume from
> Compaq and Qantas going out of their way to include them that they
> can't be universally held in disrepute.  And they do give you all
> those extra points in Scrabble, after all.
> 
> LH
> 
> *see also Henry Bellaman ("Robots of Language", Yale Review, 19
> (1929): 212-14) on the "verbal fabrications" that "take up the
> atrocious burden of contemporary advertising". Along with slang--"a
> product carelessly spawned by tongues of loose morals"--these
> "monsters" and "clacking robot words" threaten an invasion of the
> lexicon snatchers, "framed in the buzz of "z's" and the rattle of
> "x's".  Nary a q in sight, for good or ill.
> 
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> 
> 




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