Q

Uppercase "Q"

Depending on the typeface used to typeset the letter Q, the letter's tail may either bisect its bowl as in Helvetica,^[16] meet the bowl as in Univers, or lie completely outside the bowl as in PT Sans. In writing block letters, bisecting tails are the fastest to write, as they require less precision. All three styles are considered equally valid, with most serif typefaces having a Q with a tail that meets the circle, while sans-serif typefaces are more equally split between those with bisecting tails and those without.^[17] Typefaces with a disconnected Q tail, while uncommon, have existed since at least 1529.^[18] A common method among type designers to create the shape of the Q is by simply adding a tail to the letter O.^[17][19][20]

Old-style serif fonts, such as Garamond, may contain two uppercase Qs: one with a short tail to be used in short words, and another with a long tail to be used in long words.^[18] Some early metal type fonts included up to 3 different Qs: a short-tailed Q, a long-tailed Q, and a long-tailed Q-u ligature.^[15] This print tradition was alive and well until the 19th century, when long-tailed Qs fell out of favor; even recreations of classic typefaces such as Caslon began being distributed with only short Q tails.^[21][15] American typographer D. B. Updike, who was known to disapprove of the long-tailed Q, celebrated their demise in his 1922 book Printing Types, claiming that Renaissance printers made their Q tails longer and longer simply to "outdo each other".^[15] Latin-language words, which are much more likely than English words to contain "Q" as their first letter, have also been cited as the reason for their existence.^[15] The long-tailed Q had fallen out of use with the advent of early digital typography, as many early digital fonts could not choose different glyphs based on the word that the glyph was in, but it has seen something of a comeback with the advent of OpenType fonts and LaTeX, both of which can automatically typeset the long-tailed Q when it is called for and the short-tailed Q when it is not.^[22][23]

Owing to the allowable variation between letters, Q,^[17][24] like &, is often cited as a letter that gives type designers a greater opportunity for self-expression.^[4] Identifont is an automatic typeface identification service that identifies typefaces by asking questions about their appearance and later asks about the Q tail if the "sans-serif" option is chosen.^[25] In the Identifont database, the distribution of Q tails is:^[26]

More information ( ...

Q tail type	Serif	Sans-serif
Bisecting	1461	2719
Meets bowl	3363	4521
Outside bowl	271	397
"2" shape (${\displaystyle {\mathcal {Q}}}$)	304	428
Inside bowl	129	220
Total	5528	8285

Close

Some type designers prefer one "Q" design over another: Adrian Frutiger, famous for the airport typeface that bears his name, remarked that most of his typefaces feature a Q tail that meets the bowl and then extends horizontally.^[20] Frutiger considered such Qs to make for more "harmonious" and "gentle" typefaces.^[20] "Q" often makes the list of their favorite letters; for example, Sophie Elinor Brown, designer of Strato,^[27] has listed "Q" as being her favorite letter.^[28][29]

Lowercase "q"

The lowercase "q" is usually seen as a lowercase "o" or "c" with a descender (i.e., downward vertical tail) extending from the right side of the bowl, with or without a swash (i.e., flourish), or even a reversed lowercase p. The "q"'s descender is usually typed without a swash due to the major style difference typically seen between the descenders of the "g" (a loop) and "q" (vertical). When handwritten, or as part of a handwriting font, the descender of the "q" sometimes finishes with a rightward swash to distinguish it from the letter "g" (or, particularly in mathematics, from the digit "9").