Q Words in Scrabble - Monday, April 20, 2015

Today's blog is brought to you by Q words used in Scrabble (not a comprehensive list).

Qi:
1. Physical life force (from Chinese qi, "air, breath"
2. (In Oriental medicine, martial arts, etc.) vital energy believed to circulate round the body in currents. A variant of chi.

Qoph:
A variant of koph, the 19th letter of the Hebrew alphabet transliterated as q.

Quean:
1. an overly forward, impudent woman; shrew; hussy
2. a prostitute
3. British dialect. a girl or young woman, especially a robust one

Quire:
1. A set of 24 uniform sheets of paper
2. Bookbinding. A section of printed leaves in proper sequence after folding; gathering 

That's it for today: quick and quintessential.

Games - Tues., Apr. 8

I like games. Most games are social and made to be played by two or more people. It's fun to match wits with others and spend time getting to know them.

My favorite game is Scrabble. Why? I am a word person. It's fun to anagram the seven Scrabble tiles to find the best combination of letters and high-score tiles on the board, also because there's quite a bit of strategy involved. (At any one time I have 15-20 Scrabble games going on Facebook. The games aren't played real time; one person takes a turn, then waits for the next person to take a turn. It can take days to weeks to play one game depending on how quickly your opponent(s) play.)

Other board/card games I enjoy include: Sequence, Rummikub, Dominoes, Qwirkle, Pit, Milles Bornes, Yahtzee, Pinochle, Risk, Monopoly, Connect Four, Topple, Rummy, Spoons, Hearts, and Spades.

For over 25 years, Bob and I were in a pinochle group in Oregon. We played once a month and alternated whose home we played in. It was a social event with potluck, a top prize for first place and a "booby" prize for last place. We had so much fun and made life-long friends.

Qwirkle

When I was in high school I loved chess, but I haven't played that for years. My skills are rusty.

Physical games were played in high school. My favorites were basketball, softball, and volleyball. Soccer was fun, but that wasn't introduced in our gym curriculum until late in high school. I also enjoyed bowling, square dancing and archery in high school.

In college, I was in love with roller skating and ballroom dancing. I played basketball and volleyball there as well.

Mental "games" I scratch my head over are crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, quizzes, brain teasers, Numbrix, Word Scrambles, Cryptoquizzes, etc. When I have time, I'll pick up a puzzle book or do Numbrix puzzles. Other people love Sudoku. (I've never played Sudoku.)

Even TV game shows pique my interest. My favorites are Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Reality shows fall into the TV game show category. I regularly watch Amazing Race, Survivor, Bachelor/Bachelorette, Shark Tank, Millionaire Matchmaker, and Project Runway.
The reality shows are for entertainment value, not for mind exercise.

And that, my friends, is what I do with the little spare time I have.

Travel Bug out.

QWERTY -- Fri., Apr. 19

Surely if you've taken a typing class you recognize QWERTY. On the standard English language typewriter keyboard layout, q, w, e, r, t, and y are positioned on the top row of alphabetic characters on the left side of the keyboard. I never knew qwerty was an actual word in the dictionary until I started  playing a lot of Scrabble online. But it is a word.

QWERTY keyboard

From Online Etymology Dictionary:

qwerty
1929, from the first six keys on a standard typewriter keyboard, read as though text, from top left. Mechanical typewriter patented 1867; the QWERTY layout itself is said to date to 1887; it is not meant to slow down typists, but to separate the letters in common digraphs (-sh-, -ck-, etc.) to reduce jamming of swing-arms in old-style machines. It actually speeds typing by requiring alternate-hand strokes, which is one reason why the alternative DVORAK keyboard is not appreciably faster. Remnants of the original alphabetic typewriter keyboard remain in the second row of letter keys: FGH-JKL. The Fr. standard was AZERTY; in Ger., QWERTZ;in It., QZERTY.

NOTE: Please read below the citations below for the rest of our day.

References:

American Psychological Association (APA):

qwerty. (n.d.). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved April 19, 2013, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/qwerty

Chicago Manual Style (CMS):

qwerty. Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/qwerty (accessed: April 19, 2013).

Modern Language Association (MLA):

"qwerty." Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 19 Apr. 2013. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/qwerty>.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE):

Dictionary.com, "qwerty," in Online Etymology Dictionary. Source location: Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/qwerty. Available: http://dictionary.reference.com. Accessed: April 19, 2013.

BibTeX Bibliography Style (BibTeX)

@article {Dictionary.com2013,
    title = {Online Etymology Dictionary},
    month = {Apr},
    day = {19},
    year = {2013},
    url = {http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/qwerty},
}

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In other news, after doing the laundry this evening, we went to Papa John's and picked up a pizza (FREE!). Driving back to the RV park, we saw a blimp flying over San Antonio. We ate outside at our site's picnic table. After we finished eating, the blimp flew right past the RV park. I ran inside, grabbed my camera, and SNAP!; took a photo.

Blimp over San Antonio, Texas.

Click the photo to enlarge it. You can see the cabin hanging on the bottom side, a U.S. flag flying at the back, and the two lines hanging down from the front are for landing and tying down the blimp. I know, I've been up in one. 

When we were kids my dad worked for Goodyear and our family rode over Los Angeles in the Goodyear Blimp. What a thrill! Not many people can say they've done that.

Travel Bug out.