http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=110195


in reply to Name Space

The legend of 'merphq'


I'm also not entirely sure but I think the Q came from an old joke. I used to have a pair of 'Q' jeans and sometimes when my friends would introduce me they would say 'Yves, Yves with a Q' to confuse people. I come from Toronto so people sometimes dont get my name as they think they have misheard. So the Q thing became a sort of running joke amongst a group of my friends.
As for the 'merphq' part, it comes from a weekend party at a friends cottage. All of the people that used to go to the cottage got merphqnames and as we are now scattered use them to keep in touch. Which is where I get mine as I am the DE or German Merphqentitive. :-)
There is a www.merphq.com site where some of my friends do web casts of their music, but right now it isnt too active.

Yves
update:Its well accepted in the merphq community that the q is silent. :-)
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Re: Re: Name Space
by merphq (Novice) on Oct 22, 2001 at 20:10 UTC
    To further preface the explanation demerphq has given, merphq was meant to be a word which means nothing but can be used to mean anything. There was much debate over how the word should be spelled and it was eventually agreed that m e r p h was appropriate, until seconds later, when someone in the party shouted out "with a silent q" and the word merphq was set in stone.

    When the various parties involved had returned to their respective cities around the world, I decided that I would set up a website so that we could all keep in touch. merphq.com seemed like the most appropriate domain name and also the least likely to be in use already. These days, most of us use 'merphq' in some form in our usernames as it is a sure bet that nobody else has taken it. Thus 'merphq', 'demerphq', 'smerphq' and 'merphqette' (until an recent breakup) are currently in use today in various ways. So in actual fact, it's not as uncommon as you might think.
Re: Re: Name Space
by Biker (Priest) on Mar 12, 2002 at 12:49 UTC

    Having French as my third language, I can't stop ROTFL when I read the "Yves, Yves with a Q" above.

    In French, this would be pronounced as "Yves, Yves avec un 'Q'."

    Which very naturally could be interpreted as "Yves, Yves avec un cul", and which in it's turn would mean "Yves, Yves with an a*s" when translated to English.

    I'm not sure if demerpq will appreciate this interpretation, but I'm sure that many french speaking people have at least silently laughed when Yves was presented that way.

    (Biker runs off, trying to save his own 'Q'.)


    Everything will go worng!

      Hah. Im sure a french speaker finds the whole issue humurous even with out the unintended pun. The ease with which I can confuse a fellow english speaker by saying my name is "Yves with a Q" alone Im sure does it.

      But I assure you I do have an ass, and have even been called one at various points.. ;-)

      Also I wonder if this is a Parisian French versus Quebecois French thing. None of my quebecois speaking friends noticed the pun.... Or at least none of them told me about it...

      :-)

      Yves / DeMerphq
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        As hinted in my home node I live in Haute-Savoie. Being a Biker doesn't in any way make my humor more politically correct. ;-)


        Everything will go worng!

        The ease with which I can confuse a fellow english speaker by saying my name is "Yves with a Q" alone I'm sure does it.

        Personally, I'd just assume that meant your name was spelled "Yvesq" (or possibly "Yveq"), which, given my understanding of French phonetics would probably be pronounced exactly the same as "Yves", since q is widely regarded as a consonant, and it has been my observation that consonants on the end of a word in French generally don't appear to have much if anything to do with the pronunciation. Indeed, I'd expect "Yvesailles" to be pronounced the same way as well.

        But, of course, I don't actually speak French, so maybe I'm just a confused English-speaker.

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