X

The letter x does not take up too much room in an English dictionary and in fact I have a pocket dictionary where it just manages to make a third of a page. Dr Samuel Johnson, famous for compiling one of the first English dictionary, did not even bother with an X entry saying there were no English words which began with the letter, but then he also disapproved of French words and even left out the world champagne.  I hope he included the word bubbly otherwise how would they have ordered it?  I idly wondered how many X words there would be in a modern average sized dictionary. The compliers say there will be about 120 but in a comprehensive, and larger, dictionary there would be around 400 which would include rare and obsolete words.  Plenty to choose from, but there does seem to be an inordinate number of words to do with wood.  So which of those 400 or so words will you be choosing this week?  Or perhaps you will go with flora and fauna which have more than a sprinkling of X words, especially that most mysterious of organisms, the lichen.

You are an inventive lot when we get the the more tricky letter of the alphabet so maybe there will be X formed in nature or in the urban landscape.  Sometimes one falls into your lap as it roams the highways and byways 

like this one I stopped behind at the traffic lights. 

  

Happy hunting.

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