Why do we even have this letter in the alphabet? It is not even a stand-alone letter in normal usage, it is always followed by a U. Let’s just abolish it and use Kw isntead of Qu.

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

And X too, while you’re at it…

party_pants said:

Why do we even have this letter in the alphabet? It is not even a stand-alone letter in normal usage, it is always followed by a U. Let’s just abolish it and use Kw isntead of Qu.

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

Qantas :)

party_pants said:

Why do we even have this letter in the alphabet? It is not even a stand-alone letter in normal usage, it is always followed by a U. Let’s just abolish it and use Kw isntead of Qu.

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

Quran

sibeen said:

party_pants said:

Why do we even have this letter in the alphabet? It is not even a stand-alone letter in normal usage, it is always followed by a U. Let’s just abolish it and use Kw isntead of Qu.

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

Qantas :)

Well, change Qu to Kw then Qantas becomes Kantas…

The Rev Dodgson said:

party_pants said:

Why do we even have this letter in the alphabet? It is not even a stand-alone letter in normal usage, it is always followed by a U. Let’s just abolish it and use Kw isntead of Qu.

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

Quran

I do not know the correct pronunciation of that but it is often referred to as Koran. Besides, it is a non english word and may not be relevant to a discussion about the english alphabet…

party_pants said:

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

Here are a few examples…

antique
liquor
physique
picturesque
unique
mosquito
technique

party_pants said:

Why do we even have this letter in the alphabet? It is not even a stand-alone letter in normal usage, it is always followed by a U.

Not a Scrabble fan, are you? There’s lots of words with q that don’t require a u.

fsm said:

party_pants said:

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

Here are a few examples…

antique
liquor
physique
picturesque
unique
mosquito
technique

And in those cases you could mostly get away with ditching the w and going with a straight k…

furious said:

fsm said:

party_pants said:

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

Here are a few examples…

antique
liquor
physique
picturesque
unique
mosquito
technique

And in those cases you could mostly get away with ditching the w and going with a straight k…

antike
likor
physike
pictureske
unike
moskito
technike

Kwaint just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Arts said:

furious said:

fsm said:

Here are a few examples…

antique
liquor
physique
picturesque
unique
mosquito
technique

And in those cases you could mostly get away with ditching the w and going with a straight k…

antike
likor
physike
pictureske
unike
moskito
technike

anteek
licka
fizeek
picturesk
uneek
moskeeto
tekneek

Michael V said:

Arts said:

furious said:

And in those cases you could mostly get away with ditching the w and going with a straight k…

antike
likor
physike
pictureske
unike
moskito
technike

anteek
licka
fizeek
picturesk
uneek
moskeeto
tekneek

eweneek

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

Arts said:

antike
likor
physike
pictureske
unike
moskito
technike

anteek
licka
fizeek
picturesk
uneek
moskeeto
tekneek

eweneek

Ta. I was wondering how to do that one.

Michael V said:

Arts said:

furious said:

And in those cases you could mostly get away with ditching the w and going with a straight k…

antike
likor
physike
pictureske
unike
moskito
technike

anteek
licka
fizeek
picturesk
uneek
moskeeto
tekneek

anteak
lickor
fizzeek
pickchewresk
youneek
mosskeytoe
techneek

Nah, ya can get stuffed. I want to keep “Q”.

sibeen said:

Nah, ya can get stuffed. I want to keep “Q”.

Get rid of the u that follows it around though, bludger…

sibeen said:

Nah, ya can get stuffed. I want to keep “Q”.

I am good with that. It is a letter I do like to write. It’s a bit arty.

sarahs mum said:

sibeen said:

Nah, ya can get stuffed. I want to keep “Q”.

I am good with that. It is a letter I do like to write. It’s a bit arty.

furious said:

sarahs mum said:

sibeen said:

Nah, ya can get stuffed. I want to keep “Q”.

I am good with that. It is a letter I do like to write. It’s a bit arty.

oh I hadn’t thought of that..

LGBTI?

Arts said:

furious said:

sarahs mum said:

I am good with that. It is a letter I do like to write. It’s a bit arty.

oh I hadn’t thought of that..

LGBTI?

wait.. what happened to my post?

LGBT ( KW ) I

We’ll have to redesign the QWERTY keyboard.

Ya can’t abolish Q!!! What would 007 have to say about that?

furious said:

sarahs mum said:

sibeen said:

Nah, ya can get stuffed. I want to keep “Q”.

I am good with that. It is a letter I do like to write. It’s a bit arty.

What’s the significance of the sign?

Divine Angel said:

party_pants said:

Why do we even have this letter in the alphabet? It is not even a stand-alone letter in normal usage, it is always followed by a U.

Not a Scrabble fan, are you? There’s lots of words with q that don’t require a u.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_containing_Q_not_followed_by_U

Michael V said:

furious said:

sarahs mum said:

I am good with that. It is a letter I do like to write. It’s a bit arty.

What’s the significance of the sign?

Far right conspiracy theory…

QAnon

furious said:

And X too, while you’re at it…

X, unlike Q, at least has the advantage that x is one character fewer than ks.

But you can get rid of C, or better still, make C = ch.

furious said:

fsm said:

party_pants said:

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

Here are a few examples…

antique
liquor
physique
picturesque
unique
mosquito
technique

And in those cases you could mostly get away with ditching the w and going with a straight k…

Yes. Good point. well made.

Divine Angel said:

We’ll have to redesign the QWERTY keyboard.

We could adopt a letter for “Th” and place it where the Q went.

party_pants said:

Divine Angel said:

We’ll have to redesign the QWERTY keyboard.

We could adopt a letter for “Th” and place it where the Q went.

“We” used to have one. Called a thorn, I think…

furious said:

party_pants said:

Divine Angel said:

We’ll have to redesign the QWERTY keyboard.

We could adopt a letter for “Th” and place it where the Q went.

“We” used to have one. Called a thorn, I think…

Yes i know. Why that one got dropped and Q was kept is beyond me. Maybe the pronunciation was different in those days. I think it should be redesigned though, too close to a Y the way it was.

furious said:

Michael V said:

furious said:

What’s the significance of the sign?

Far right conspiracy theory…

QAnon

Thanks.

Some USAsians are weird…

Why not go the whole hog and make English spelling fully phonetic…

dv said:

Why not go the whole hog and make English spelling fully phonetic…

Because then you would just have Pitmanscript.

Michael V said:

furious said:

Michael V said:

What’s the significance of the sign?

Far right conspiracy theory…

QAnon

Thanks.

Some USAsians are weird…

People seem to vastly overate the ability of the conspirators to carry out and maintain these secrets

party_pants said:

Divine Angel said:

We’ll have to redesign the QWERTY keyboard.

We could adopt a letter for “Th” and place it where the Q went.

There was a letter for “th” but it disappeared in modern English – the Thorn. In some writing styles, it looked somewhat like a “Y”. You can see the mistransliteration on signs in England eg “Ye Olde Inn”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)#Modern_English

Of course English has two “th” sounds so we really need two letters. Þ and ð like they do in Icelandic.

Michael V said:

party_pants said:

Divine Angel said:

We’ll have to redesign the QWERTY keyboard.

We could adopt a letter for “Th” and place it where the Q went.

There was a letter for “th” but it disappeared in modern English – the Thorn. In some writing styles, it looked somewhat like a “Y”. You can see the mistransliteration on signs in England eg “Ye Olde Inn”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)#Modern_English

Surely it must have been known as the Yorn.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Michael V said:

party_pants said:

We could adopt a letter for “Th” and place it where the Q went.

There was a letter for “th” but it disappeared in modern English – the Thorn. In some writing styles, it looked somewhat like a “Y”. You can see the mistransliteration on signs in England eg “Ye Olde Inn”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)#Modern_English

Surely it must have been known as the Yorn.

It was still pronounced with a th sound. What we would say as thorn.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Michael V said:

party_pants said:

We could adopt a letter for “Th” and place it where the Q went.

There was a letter for “th” but it disappeared in modern English – the Thorn. In some writing styles, it looked somewhat like a “Y”. You can see the mistransliteration on signs in England eg “Ye Olde Inn”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)#Modern_English

Surely it must have been known as the Yorn.

giggle

The Rev Dodgson said:

Michael V said:

party_pants said:

We could adopt a letter for “Th” and place it where the Q went.

There was a letter for “th” but it disappeared in modern English – the Thorn. In some writing styles, it looked somewhat like a “Y”. You can see the mistransliteration on signs in England eg “Ye Olde Inn”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)#Modern_English

Surely it must have been known as the Yorn.

only in days of yor.

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Michael V said:

There was a letter for “th” but it disappeared in modern English – the Thorn. In some writing styles, it looked somewhat like a “Y”. You can see the mistransliteration on signs in England eg “Ye Olde Inn”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)#Modern_English

Surely it must have been known as the Yorn.

only in days of yor.

dv said:

ChrispenEvan said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Surely it must have been known as the Yorn.

only in days of yor.

I was hoping for a Thor reference.

ChrispenEvan said:

dv said:

ChrispenEvan said:

only in days of yor.

I was hoping for a Thor reference.

That’d be Yursday.

ChrispenEvan said:

dv said:

ChrispenEvan said:

only in days of yor.

I was hoping for a Thor reference.

jɔː wɪʃ ɪz maɪ kəmɑːnd

yes, we were going to say, why confuse people by increasing ambiguity, and instead recommend use the ipa

party_pants said:

Why do we even have this letter in the alphabet? It is not even a stand-alone letter in normal usage, it is always followed by a U. Let’s just abolish it and use Kw isntead of Qu.

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

q is more muted or softer than kw

it appears to be an exhalation, slightly rasped briefly at the back, and the restriction of airlfow seems to move from back toward front as lips go in, almost as if about to whistle, of using the word queen as an example

doing my head in

lady asks are you doing noise testing

transition said:

party_pants said:

Why do we even have this letter in the alphabet? It is not even a stand-alone letter in normal usage, it is always followed by a U. Let’s just abolish it and use Kw isntead of Qu.

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

q is more muted or softer than kw

it appears to be an exhalation, slightly rasped briefly at the back, and the restriction of airlfow seems to move from back toward front as lips go in, almost as if about to whistle, of using the word queen as an example

doing my head in

lady asks are you doing noise testing

This is incorrect

dv said:

transition said:

party_pants said:

Why do we even have this letter in the alphabet? It is not even a stand-alone letter in normal usage, it is always followed by a U. Let’s just abolish it and use Kw isntead of Qu.

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

q is more muted or softer than kw

it appears to be an exhalation, slightly rasped briefly at the back, and the restriction of airlfow seems to move from back toward front as lips go in, almost as if about to whistle, of using the word queen as an example

doing my head in

lady asks are you doing noise testing

This is incorrect

quite likely, it happens

dv said:

transition said:

party_pants said:

Why do we even have this letter in the alphabet? It is not even a stand-alone letter in normal usage, it is always followed by a U. Let’s just abolish it and use Kw isntead of Qu.

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

q is more muted or softer than kw

it appears to be an exhalation, slightly rasped briefly at the back, and the restriction of airlfow seems to move from back toward front as lips go in, almost as if about to whistle, of using the word queen as an example

doing my head in

lady asks are you doing noise testing

This is incorrect

You could have said “Quite so” Or “Kwite so”

Read the Qanon Wikipedia article, people really believe such crap, one does wonder if its some foreign state (likely Russia) behind it

Americans don’t use “G”, but I think we should keep it if only for old times sake.

bucolic3401 said:

Americans don’t use “G”, but I think we should keep it if only for old times sake.

Or W as in George dubbya.

transition said:

party_pants said:

Why do we even have this letter in the alphabet? It is not even a stand-alone letter in normal usage, it is always followed by a U. Let’s just abolish it and use Kw isntead of Qu.

Is there any word with a Qu in it that could not simply be replaced by a Kw to indicate the same sound?

q is more muted or softer than kw

it appears to be an exhalation, slightly rasped briefly at the back, and the restriction of airlfow seems to move from back toward front as lips go in, almost as if about to whistle, of using the word queen as an example

doing my head in

lady asks are you doing noise testing

In my particular accent, there is no difference.

furious said:

And X too, while you’re at it…

I have a book about spelling reform here by a correspondent of mine. I’ll see if I can find it. No, I must have archived it. The book is “Lindgren, Harry. Spelling Reform: A New Approach. Alpha Books, 1969.”

It does have a wikipedia entry. “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR1” But this wikipedia entry is only for Stage 1 of a five stage spelling reform. Later stages abolish Q, X, C, Y etc. Another example I like is using “Hansm” for “Handsome”

Here’s a poem about the reform of the letter “e”

Draw a breth for progress,
Tred abrest ahed.
Fight agenst old spelling,
Better “red” than “read”.
Spred the words at brekfast,
Mesure them in bed,
Dream of welth and tresure,
Better “ded” than “dead”.

Stage 1:
Reform E (see above)
PH to F
Drop GH, eg. Laugh to Laf, Through to Thru

Phonetic A “http://runeberg.org/authors/lindghas.html” includes in summary

pa’m fe’ri li’n ho’l fu’ri muun
> palm fairy lean haul furry moon
dai lei koi hau lou
> die lay coy how low
dair leir koir our lour
> dire layer coir our lower
knaiv hrou’k fnetk horr of’sr of’s‘rz
> connive heroic phonetic horror officer officers
gramr sistr martr kulr hansm litl
> grammar sister martyr colour handsome little
en-geij lait-haus caild-hood
> engage lighthouse childhood

A sample of Phonetic A:

Hi hth disgreist mi, ‘nd hind’rd mi ha’f ‘milyn, la’ft ‘t mai losz, mokt ‘t mai geinz, skornd mai neishn, thwortd mai barg’nz, kuuld mai frendz, hi’td mai en’miz; ‘nd wots hiz ri’zn? Ai’m ‘Juu. Hath not ‘Juu aiz? hath not ‘Juu handz, org’nz, dmensh’nz, ‘feksh’nz, pash’nz? fed with dh’ seim fuud, hurt with dh’ seim wep’nz, subj’kt t’ dh’ seim disi’zz, hi’ld bai dh’ sem mi’nz, wormd ‘n kuuld bai dh’seim wintr ‘nd sumr, ‘z ‘Krsityn iz?

I’ve also seen a hilarious send-up of spelling reform. Here is is, from https://www.smart-jokes.org/english-spelling-reform.html Also more jokes about spelling reform on that web page.

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter “c” would be dropped to be replased either by “k” or “s,” and likewise “x” would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which “c” would be retained would be the “ch” formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform “w” spelling, so that “which” and “one” would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish “y” replasing it with “i” and Iear 4 might fiks the “g/j” anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez “c,” “y” and “x”—bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez—tu riplais “ch,” “sh,” and “th” rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe ingliy-spiking werld.

Have a look at Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. It presents a language evolved from English, and does a better job that any other book I’ve read.

btm said:

Have a look at Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. It presents a language evolved from English, and does a better job that any other book I’ve read.

Glasshouse by Stross has a future version of English, not spelling reform but at a time when a large number of current words have vanished from the language, words such as “work” and “cow” and “year” and “silk” and “government”.

And what do we do with Q from Star Trek?

Peak Warming Man said:

And what do we do with Q from Star Trek?

or james bond???

ChrispenEvan said:

Peak Warming Man said:

And what do we do with Q from Star Trek?

or james bond???

Never mind. We would only be minding our P’s.

ChrispenEvan said:

Peak Warming Man said:

And what do we do with Q from Star Trek?

or james bond???

Becomes Kewpie