| 词源 |
cue. In the 16th century the Latin quando, “when,” was ab- breviated as Q on actors’ copies of play scripts as a direction telling an actor when to begin speaking his part. Q was read and pronounced cue, the abbreviation becoming a word when it was finally written cue as well. No play manuscripts with Q’s on them survive, but several 16th- and 17th-century writers tell this story and it seems likely, especially since cue is first re- corded as q, in 1553: “. . . a man’s q in a play.” |