Spelling the qu words


	queen	question

The rules for qu are simple;

1. When you hear the sound /kw/ the spelling is always qu.
2. In English words, q is never seen without u: qu.

"Never?" - Well, almost never! A true story:

For many years the author of this course used to stress the qu spelling to all her classes by promising a big reward to any student who could find an English word containing q without u. She was confident she would never have to pay up but, in 1993, Andrew (age 12) found the word 'qwerty' in his dictionary. This word describes a computer keyboard and is made from the first six letters on the keyboard. It has become part of the language and is one of the very few English words to break the qu rule. Can you find two more words that break the qu rule?

Some examples of qu words:

quick quite quilt request require equal aquarium earthquake inquisitive	qua and quar quads quality quantity squash squat squalor quarter quartet quartz After qu, the short vowel sound /o/ is usually spelled with the letter a. The sound /or/ is spelled ar.
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