Chapter Quidnuncs to Quotem of Q by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Quodling (The Rev. Mr.), chaplain to the duke of Buckingham.—Sir W. Scott: Peveril of the Peak (time, Charles II.).

“Why,” said the duke, “I had caused my little Quodling to go through his oration thus: ‘Whatever evil reports had passed current during the lifetime of the worthy matron whom they had restored to dust that day, even Malice herself could not deny that she was born well, married well, lived well, and died well; since she was born at Shadwell, married to Cresswell, lived in Camberwell, and died in Bridewell.”—Peveril of the Peak, xliv. (1823).

(Some give Clerkenwell instead of “Camberwell.”)

Quos Ego—, a threat intended but withhe ld; a sentence broken off. Eolus, angry with the winds and storms which had thrown the sea into commotion without his sanction, was going to say he would punish them severely for this act of insubordination; but having uttered the first two words, “Whom I—,” he says no more, but proceeds to the business in hand.—Virgil: Æneid, i.

“Next Monday,” said he, “you will be a ‘substance, and then—;” with which quos ego he went to the next boy.—Dasent: Half a Life (1850).

Quotem (Caleb), a parish clerk or Jack-of-all-trades.—Colman: The Review or The Wags of Windsor (1798).

I resolved, like Caleb Quotem, to have a place at the review.—Washington Irving.

R. Neither Demosthenês nor Aristotle could pronounce the letter r.

R [rogues], vagabonds, etc., who were branded on the left shoulder with this letter.

They…may be burned with a hot burning iron of the breadth of a shilling, with a great Roman R on the left shoulder, which letter shall remain as the mark of a rogue.—Prynne: Histrio-mastix or The Players’ Scourge.

If I escape the halter with the letter R
Printed upon it.
   —Massinger: A New Way to Pay Old Debts, iv.2(1625).