q for que, x=?

[Federico Escobar]

Without a doubt, q is "que", x is "por", and xq is "porque", "porqué" or
"por qué" in SMS speech. The reason is that which was given by the UK Yahoo
answers page: x in mathematics is read as "por" in Spanish, so it doubles up
as the preposition "por" or simply the string of letters "por" (as in the
word "porque", where "por" is embedded in the word). One creative derivation
of xq as "porque" is xa as "para".

Other abbreviations for "que" are k and ke. And that letter k is used often
to represent the "qu" sound ("kien kiere keso", for instance, which may make
some teeth grit).

Here's a list of SMS abbreviations that showed up among the first Google
hits:
http://www.cabinas.net/mensajes_sms_gratis/diccionario_sms.asp

Surely some of this must become less relevant now that cellphones have full
QWERTY keyboards.

F.




On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 1:46 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: q for que, x=?
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> Here is somebody's answer:
>
> http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100409134541AA5ef8m
>
> -- Doug Wilson
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