Using 'x' for 'kisses': 6 Minute English - YouTube
Neil: Hello. Welcome to 6 Minute English, I'm Neil.
Rob: And I'm Rob.
Neil: We're going to be looking at a letter
from the English alphabet. It's a letter
which has a particular meaning when
used at the end of a piece of informal
writing such as letters, emails, texts and
messages.
Rob: I'm very EXcited.
Neil: Ha ha, very good, very good Rob!
Rob: My EXpectations are really high.
Neil: Yep, that's another good one.
Rob: Is it an EXtraordinary letter?
Neil: OK, thank you Rob, that's enough of
your jokes. I'm getting EXasperated!
Oh, now you've got me at it! Well no prizes
for guessing what letter we're focussing
on today?
Rob: Why?
Neil: No, it's not Y.
Rob: No, no. I didn't mean the letter ‘y',
I meant the word ‘why', as in - why are
there no prizes?
Neil: Because of all the not so subtle
clues you've been giving. The letter is X.
Rob: Yes. Exactly.
Neil: Alright, I think we get the idea!
Before we go much further, let's have a
question. English has 26 letters. Which
language has 74 letters? Is it
a) Khmer, b) Hindi or c) Armenian?
Any ideas Rob?
Rob: An excellent question but quite
obscure, I'm going to say b) Hindi.
Neil: Well, I'll have the answer later on.
Now, Rob, what does the letter X all by
itself at the end of a message mean?
Rob: Well, it means a kiss. The more
kisses, the more affection you are
showing.
Neil: Where does this concept of putting
an X to mean a kiss, come from? Dr Laura
Wright is from the Faculty of English at
Cambridge University and she appeared
on the BBC Radio 4 programme
Word of Mouth. When does she say this
practice started and where does it come from?
Well, we've been adding Xs for kisses at
the bottom of letters since at least 1763.
So the very first one we know of had seven
Xs. I have to say, I haven't gone to seven ever.
We get X from the Roman alphabet which
got it from the Greek alphabet,
pronounced /ks/ and the Romans...
Presenter: That's nearly a kiss, isn't it?
Yes it is, isn't it? I think a penny's
just dropped there.
Presenter: It has, clunk.
Neil: What do we learn about the origins
of the X for kisses?
Rob: Well, it's been used since at least
1763, and it comes from the Roman
alphabet and they got it from the Greeks.
Neil: And why did this come to mean a kiss?
Rob: Well, Dr Wright suggests it's because
of the original pronunciation - /ks/.
Neil: And at the point the presenter made
the connection, didn't he?
Rob: Yes, he did. And Dr Wright used a
phrase for when someone suddenly
understands something,
particularly something that is obvious to
others. She said the penny has just dropped.
Neil: And this has got nothing to do with a
penny, which is small coin, actually
dropping anywhere. But the presenter
makes a joke by using a word we use for
the noise of something falling, clunk.
Rob: Although, to be honest, a penny
would never really clunk. That's more like
the noise two heavy metal objects would
make - the clunk of a car door, for example.
Neil: Let's listen to that exchange again.
Well, we've been adding Xs for kisses at
the bottom of letters since at least 1763.
So the very first one we know of had seven Xs.
I have to say I haven't gone to seven ever.
We get X from the Roman alphabet which
got it from the Greek alphabet,
pronounced /ks/ and the Romans...
Presenter: That's nearly a kiss, isn't it?
Yes it is, isn't it? I think a penny's
just dropped there.
Presenter: It has, clunk.
Neil: One thing to note about putting an X
at the end of a communication is that it is
not something you do for everyone. It's
usually only to friends and family
members, people you might kiss in real
life. Professor Nils Langer from
the University of Bristol told a story about
a colleague of his who wasn't too familiar
with this convention. What was her mistake?
A colleague of mine from Bristol, who... when
she came over from Germany thought
that X was just the normal way of closing a
letter in England and so she would finish
any letter with Xs, even a letter to the
Inland Revenue. We never heard, really,
how the Inland Revenue responded
to these letters with these Xs.
Presenter: They docked her another 20
quid, I think!
Neil: What was her mistake, Rob?
Rob: She didn't realise that you don't put
an X on every communication. So she
even put it on business letter including
one to the Inland Revenue, which is the
government department in the UK that
deals with tax.
Neil: We don't know how the tax people
felt about the letter with kisses. But the
presenter joked about what their
response would have been.
Rob: Yes, he joked that they probably
docked her another 20 quid. To dock
money is to cut the amount of money you
are expecting to receive and a quid is a
slang word for a British pound.
Neil: Now time for the answer to our
question. English has 26 letters. Which
language has 74 letters? Is it…
a) Khmer, b) Hindi or c) Armenian?
Rob: I guessed b) Hindi.
Neil: Well, I suppose it was a one in three
chance, but not correct this time. The
answer is a) Khmer. Very well done if you
knew that. Now on to the vocabulary we
looked at in this programme.
Rob: We started with a penny. A penny is
an English coin.
A hundred pennies makes one pound sterling.
Neil: The phrase 'the penny has dropped'
means that someone has suddenly
understood something.
Rob: A clunk is the noise of two heavy
objects hitting each other.
Neil: The Inland Revenue is the UK's tax
authority.
Rob: And if you dock money from someone,
you reduce the amount of money you pay
them. For example, as an employee in the
UK your tax is automatically docked from
your salary.
Neil: And finally, a quid, which is a slang
term for one pound sterling. Right, before
they start docking our pay for being late,
it's time to say goodbye. Find us on
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, our
App and of course the website
See you soon, goodbye.
Rob: Bye bye!
