and X marks the spot in treasure maps,
how did publishers explain the letter X? one springs to mind, the Persian king Xerxes, who in the field of nineteenth-century alphabet books achieved what he could never quite achieve in fifth-century BC Athens, that is, domination of the letter X, on a trip through the serious to the ridiculous, here are some of the letter X, alphabets, books and pamphlets, showing, some times ingenious, explanations of the letter X,
Xanthippe, the supposedly “fiery” wife of Socrates also gets a good look in, often shown in a rage pouring a chamber pot over her husband’s head, which — according to legend – the philosopher accepted with a simple “After thunder comes the rain”.
Other historical figures too can be seen to rise through the ranks of their lesser initialed contemporaries. Here it is Pope Sixtus II (also spelt Xystus, which comes from the Greek word for “polished”).
Here it is a historical horse, which judging from its military context, most likely refers to the steed Hector rode in the Trojan War, though it might also refer to one of Achilles’ two horses, or the Xanthus that was one of the Mares of Diomedes.
in the natural world the more Greek-orientated names of plants and animals were an option too — here we see Xanthium and Xylon (burdock and cotton), and Xiphias (swordfish),
the conveniently named XX ale makes a few appearances too. No-one’s totally sure from where this unusual name stems, but possibly it was originally more akin to a crucifix and marked on the barrels by the monks to indicate that — swearing on oath — the batch was sound. It may also just simply have been an indicator of strength, the useof multiple X's is still here today, think Castlemaine XXXX, beer, now we are talking!
In this wonderfully erudite alphabet book, it’s X as a symbol for “kiss” (curiously rendered as “ks.§§”, as though the word unaltered would be too salacious for the page).
the anonymous group approach, many books resorted to giving up on the whole last section of the alphabet, transforming these letters into a nameless gang,
or X is for… X (or just nothing at all), some publishers just seemed to give up altogether, opting for a more meta approach — making X simply stand for… X,
in this example, the despair is palpable. They’ve simply refused to offer up any word beginning with X, instead using the space to comment on the difficulty,
and this one is perhaps the best of all, they’ve just missed it out entirely.
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