# Are English speakers also apt to automatically misspell the name of the airline, Qantas? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 28, 2011, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-speakers-also-apt-to-automatically-misspell-the-name-of-the-airline-qantas/601061 "2011-10-28T10:01:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-speakers-also-apt-to-automatically-misspell-the-name-of-the-airline-qantas/601061/21 "2011-11-03T14:33:19Z")
> [@Floater](#): > > I noted the other day that newspapers in Sweden spell it correctly, but whenever the company was mentioned in the radio it was pronounced “kwantas”. That’s how the koala who hated them pronounced it on their commercials from when I was a kid, too. Is that not correct? ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-speakers-also-apt-to-automatically-misspell-the-name-of-the-airline-qantas/601061/22 "2011-11-03T15:01:19Z")
A search reveals that there are, in addition to this one, 39 other threads on the SDMB containing the spelling “Quantas.” ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-speakers-also-apt-to-automatically-misspell-the-name-of-the-airline-qantas/601061/23 "2011-11-03T15:04:28Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Some are Chinese, some are Hebrew, some are Arabic. The ones that aren’t are either shortened words (tranq) or just a collection of letters (qwerty). They’re also English, _mon ami._ ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-speakers-also-apt-to-automatically-misspell-the-name-of-the-airline-qantas/601061/24 "2011-11-03T15:19:39Z")
> [@Bites\_When\_Provoked](#): > > It stands for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services. Once you know it’s an acronym (even without full capitalisation) it’s easy to remember that it doesn’t need a ‘U’. As someone who grew up in Australia, and spent much of his life seeing Qantas ads on TV, and watching Qantas planes take off and land, i find it incredibly jarring to see the word spelled with a “u” in it. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-speakers-also-apt-to-automatically-misspell-the-name-of-the-airline-qantas/601061/25 "2011-11-03T17:22:25Z")
> [@Floater](#): > > I noted the other day that newspapers in Sweden spell it correctly, but whenever the company was mentioned in the radio it was pronounced “kwantas”. That is how it is pronounced. As an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, it has the full “Qu” sound from Queensland even though it only carries the initial Q. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-speakers-also-apt-to-automatically-misspell-the-name-of-the-airline-qantas/601061.md?page=1)