Q

My copy of Amy Krouse Rosenthal's book, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, finally arrived after a snafu at the library.  Just in time, I thought, to help me with the pesky letter Q!

While I like and whole-heartedly agree with Rosenthal's entry for Q:

Q-TIP

Inserting a Q-Tip deep into your ear is a great, undiscussed pleasure.

I was hoping for a more extensive list to inspire my thinking.  Instead, I googled, "words that start with Q," and that did the trick.

QUADRILATERAL

I've always loved geometry.  Which is weird, because I actually lack any sense of spatial reasoning or intelligence.  But if you give me a formula and a calculator, I can work my way around a polygon or two.

QUAFF

I once used this word to describe a hairdo.  That was wrong.

QUALITATIVE

This is the kind of educational research that I do.  It's a method of inquiry that employs observation, interviews, and document analysis to try understand people's actions and their own interpretations of those actions.  Some people have a hard time grasping how this can be research.  They think that quantitative methods are the only ones that contribute to knowledge and theory.  It's a debate that I won't go into here, but I can always tell I'm about to engage in that debate when someone asks me about my research hypothesis.  Sometimes I make one up to just disarm my conversant, but that's really not the point of what I do.  Dave has stopped asking me about my hypothesis, so things are calmer around here at least.

QUANTUM LEAP

I would like to be able to do this.  That show from the early 1990s made it seem really cool.  See:

QUARK

I don't know what this means, but it sounds like you should excuse yourself after saying (or doing) it.

QUARTERBACK

Recently, I was told that you should never choose a quarterback in a first round draft pick because overall, quarterbacks aren't that different.  You should choose a running back instead.  This bit of information will come in handy someday, I am sure.

QUESADILLA

The grown-up's grilled cheese.  I eat one frequently.