Tuesday, November 06, 2012

A Quintrillion Quivering Quills


ABC Wednesday is a word meme with numerous participants from around the world. This fabulous meme was created and hosted by Mrs. Denise Nesbitt who hails from Great Britain. Over the years, others have joined in to help host this wonderful and informative meme. We are now in our ELEVENTH round with 'Captain Roger' at the helm! Some of the participants have been with this from the very first round; others have joined in along the way. Each week we are taken across the globe to see the varied and exciting contributions people have taken the time to discover and capture. We start with the letter, "A" and each week we post something in regards to the next letter of the alphabet. This week's letter is, "Q".

QUARTERSAWN

(image from talkbass-a guitar forum)

Quartersawn is a method in which a log has been cut (of course, in a quartersawn method).
Quartersawn boards have greater stability of form and size with less warping; and shrinkage is less troublesome. In some woods, the grain produces a decorative effect. Quartersawn oak shows a prominent ray fleck. Quartersawn sapele is likely to produce a ribbon figure (from Wikipedia, of course!). I stumbled in to this word when I was researching "oak" the other week.

QUISLING

 (image from: Bits of News)

Quisling is best defined by Wikipedia: is a term used in reference to fascist and collaborationist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.


QUINTILE

(image from the heritage.org site)


A quintile is where the sample of a population is divided into fifths. I took several statistics classes and you'd think I'd be familiar with this term. NOT!! Don't feel bad if you too, did not know what a quintile was.


Other fun Q' words (ha! and you thought there wasn't many?).  Quinze. From Wikipedia: An old French card game of Spanish origin, players attempting to make fifteen points.

Quadrillion: take the number ten and add 15 zeros to it. A mighty big number. But wait! They get bigger! Quintillion:  take the number ten and add 18 zeros to it. Quartturodecillion: take the number ten and add 45 zeros to it (staggering-but, pick yourself up! We have more...). Deep breath now: Quindecillion: take the number ten and add 48 zeros to it. Yes, 48 zeros. I'm sure there are more (ad infinitum), but that was all that I saw listed under 'large numbers'. It was an interesting article in Wikipedia.

Can you imagine your opponent's fury if you played any of these words (somehow) in a Scrabble game? Especially if you got it to land on a triple score word?!?



10 comments:

Roger Owen Green said...

I am reading Walter Cronkite's autobiography, and he used the word quisling to refer to some Dutch leader. Of course, the original Quisling was a guy from Norway.

ROG, ABC Wednesday team

Sylvia K said...

Fun, interesting post for the Q Day, Paula! You do find the best words for the letter of the day! Hope your week is going well!

Leslie: said...

I always learn so many new words here, Paula, but my brain seems to not be able to remember them all. I do recognize the quad and quint for the numbers as they come from the Latin for 4 and 5.

Leslie
abcw team

photowannabe said...

My brain always get an exercise when reading all the new words you share with us.
I am familiar with Quint and Quad too but the others are totally new.

Karen said...

A great Q post. Quartersawn oak is my favourite wood.

Gattina said...

I think I am ignorant, I didn't know any of these words, lol !
Gattina
ABC Wednesday Team

Berowne said...

"Q" is for Quite an entertaining post...

EJ said...

Now that's a lot of Numbers, you found such interesting Qs.

Questions
Would you mind pitching an answer?

Chubskulit Rose said...

I like the sound of quadrillion, wish I have that many in terms of finances lol.

Que Sera Sera
Rose, ABC Wednesday Team

A Cuban In London said...

Two things. When I saw the word "quisling" I first thought it was something to do with Harry Potter. I couldn't have been more wrong! :-)

I'd heard of quadrillion before but I'd never imagined that you could take it all the way to 48 zeroes and beyond. Maybe because my money will never stretch that far! :-)

Greetings from London.

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