What four nouns begin with the letters "i," "x," "z," "u," "q," and "y" in the novel The Cay?

We can find nouns in the story by looking for words for people, places, and things. For example, here are all the nouns in the first sentence of the story:

sharks

darkness

submarines

middle

night

Although it won't be possible to find four examples for each of the letters you listed, we'll do our best! If all you need is four examples from any of those letters, how about "island," "U-boat," "Queen Emma," and "yard"?

First, let's look for nouns starting with "i." You'll find "island" and "islands," as well as "inside" (which can also sometimes be a preposition) and, if you're hard-pressed to name a fourth, the "Indies" in the name "West Indies." Although the letter "I" appears perhaps a thousand times or more in the narration, it's usually a pronoun: Phillip telling the story, saying "I" to name himself.

For the letter "x," you're very unlikely to find many words. In fact, check out your "x" section in the dictionary and notice how short it is! There are not many "x" words at all in our language. So although you'll find nouns in The Cay that include "x," like "box" and "ax," I don't believe you'll find any that begin with that letter.

The same goes for "z." It's just not a letter that starts that many English words. You can find words like "puzzlement," "haze," "horizon," "Nazis," and "Venezuela" in this story, but I don't think there are any nouns here that start with "z."

In your question, you originally listed the letter "u" twice, so I left out that second instance. We'll find "U-boat" and "U-boats," "use" (in the sentence "There was no use in asking Amsterdam,") and "United States."

Next, let's look for "q" nouns. "Queen Emma," the name of a bridge, appears in Chapter 1, and throughout the rest of the story we'll find "questions" and "Quito Sueno." However, that's it for the nouns starting with "q." Many other "q" words appear in the story, like "quiver," "quickly," "quiet," and "quite," but these are not nouns.

Lastly, "y" nouns include "young" (which is usually an adjective but is used as a noun in the dedication of this book) and "year," "years," and "yard."

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

nouns - what do you call the person who passes the trophies to the prize giver/presenter?

The person who gives out the trophies to the winners are called award presenters. So what do u call the person who passes the trophies to the presenter? Thanks!

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.

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