# "Q" followed by "U"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-followed-by-u/41136>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 14, 2000, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-followed-by-u/41136 "2000-11-14T08:27:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2000, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-followed-by-u/41136/21 "2000-11-19T22:32:48Z")

</div>

Several years ago, a new dictionary for British Scrabble was produced. It had the controversial word **qi**. This was disliked by your traditional Scrabblists since it made it too easy to unload the Q[sub]10[/sub].

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2000, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-followed-by-u/41136/22 "2000-11-19T22:34:05Z")

</div>

Quantas, Qatar and Qaran.

[Bart]

qwijibo

[/Bart]

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2000, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-followed-by-u/41136/23 "2000-11-19T23:44:09Z")

</div>

I remember the same concerns about the Scrabble word “zo”. That’s what you get for choosing Chambers as your standard reference.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2000, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-followed-by-u/41136/24 "2000-11-20T02:13:26Z")

</div>

The which/witch minimal pair is not common to all English dialects. For example, in my idiolect (as well, I think, as most of the Canadian dialect) which and witch are homonyms.

This illustrates the real reason why spelling reform will never occur in English: because there are far too many different dialects. Think about it. On the basis of which dialect would you assign phonetic spelling?

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-followed-by-u/41136.md?page=1)