Word of the Day:

“He [Charlie Chaplin] financed his own films; he wrote them; he took music credit; he even choreographed. Most of the cast and crew were on his payroll. He even co-owned his distribution company. The box-office take went straight into his pocket. He was not beholden to anyone, but he was not indispensable, either. Losing the Chaplin studio had a negligible impact on the movie business qua business.” — Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2023

More example sentences

A preposition is a word—and almost always a very small, very common word—that shows direction (to in “a letter to you”), location (at in “at the door”), or time (by in “by noon”), or that introduces an object (of in “a basket of apples”) or a capacity or role (as in “works as an editor”). As such, prepositions tend not to attract as much attention as other parts of speech (unless there is some foofaraw about whether or not it’s okay to end a sentence with one). Qua, however, though very small is not very common—at least in everyday speech or writing. As one 20th-century usage writer commented, “Qua is sometimes thought affected or pretentious, but it does convey meaning economically.” Qua’s meaning is quite specific—it can substitute for the phrase “in the capacity or character of” or the preposition as in the right context, as in “they wanted to enjoy the wine qua wine, not as a status symbol.”