Q is no longer unattractive

[Wilson Gray]

The Queensland and Northern Territories Air Service, AKA "QANTAS,"
didn't go out of its way to add "Q."

-Wilson

On 4/9/07, RonButters at aol.com <RonButters at aol.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       RonButters at AOL.COM
> Subject:      Q is no longer unattractive
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> If it was ever true that "Q" struck people as unattractive, it seems no=20
> longer to be the case. Numerous new TMs make use of "q" -- I assume because=20=
> it=20
> seems eye-catching and post-modern.
>
> I thought this might have something to do with the rehabilitation of "Queer,=
> "=20
> and the use of "Queen" in popular music, but maybe it stems from the public'=
> s=20
> high regard for the exciting, long-lived reigning monarch of England. Doesn'=
> t=20
> 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.)=A0 Contrariwise, Q is the least appealing.
> > >
> > >=A0=A0 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"
> >=20
> > Or "X-ray"
> >=20
> > >), so much the better.
> > >
> > I haven't seen anyone opine in that manner on "Q".=A0 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.=A0 I'd assume from
> > Compaq and Qantas going out of their way to include them that they
> > can't be universally held in disrepute.=A0 And they do give you all
> > those extra points in Scrabble, after all.
> >=20
> > LH
> >=20
> > *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".=A0 Nary a q in sight, for good or ill.
> >=20
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