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Monday 22 June 2015

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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10 comments:

  1. I find my X words both in dictionaries and in the shapes of things , like you do. In my Dutch Dictionary by Van Dale there are only two pages dedicated to X. All words are foreign and unknown to the average Dutchman. In my Dutch-English dictionary by Koenen there are 13 words beginning with X. One of them I know : X-benen, meaning turned-in legs. We have the same problem with Y.
    Good introduction, Joy!

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  2. that beast- x! great find driving right in front of you.

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  3. That was quick thinking, to take a picture at a red light when you saw the x word. Blessings!

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  4. WHAT? No champagne? That WILL NOT DO!

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  5. X is a veXing letter indeed, but your introduction was X-cellent! ;-)
    My "x" is for Xeranthemum

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  6. Clever interpretation. Thanks for sharing.

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  7. How serendipitous...great intro♪ http://lauriekazmierczak.com/extreme/

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  8. Oh, that's a luck "X" find. Very clever of that press.

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  9. My what luck you had with finding the X!

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  10. Nice introduction, but Linky is not working this morning
    http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.be/2015/07/abc-wednesday-y.html

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