Q-Tips. Cotton swabs are called cotton buds in England and ear buds in South Africa. The Q in Q-Tips stands for “Quality.”
All twenty-six letters can be used as kickoffs to everyday words:
A-frame
B-movie
C-section
D-day
F-stop
G-string
H-bomb
iPhone
J-bar
K ration
L dopa
M phase
n-type
O-ring
P-wave
Q-Tip
R-month
S corp
T-shirt
U-turn
V-neck
W particle
X-ray
Y chromosome
Z-coordinate
(See A, EXPEDIENCY, I, S, W, X.)
Queue. Here we gaze upon a word that can have its last four letters curtailed and still retain its original pronunciation. Performing the same stunt with its first four letters beheaded is aitch. Queueing is also the only common word in English that houses five consecutive vowels.
(See A, I, X, W.)
Quintessence reflects the ancient Greek view of the universe. Empedocles posited that everything was composed of four elements—earth, air, fire, and water. Aristotle added to these basic elements a fifth (quinta) essence, which he called ether. This quintessence was the purest and most concentrated of all because it made up all the heavenly bodies. Hence, the quintessence of something is its purest and most concentrated form.
William Shakespeare’s disillusioned Hamlet uses the word that way when he laments, “What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties…. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”
(See SEPTEMBER.)