'X'cuse me, please!

The letter X is an invader, or so must be the rancour in the world of lexicons. It may be a tailender in the ABC hierarchy but in modern-day vocab, it has neatly attached itself to many words starting with 'ex'. And no one seems to be complaining, certainly not the new-age kids who in any case prefer the Afk (away from keyboard) and mos (Mom over Shoulder) language for alien-like transmissions. 

'Xchange' for exchange, 'xtraordinary' for extraordinary, 'xplore' for explore, 'xtra' for extra, 'xtreme' for extreme, these and many more similar iterations are mainstream today. To it's credit, X is a handsome letter and carries an air of elegance which makes it stand out even if it's at the bottom of the heap. Placed at the start of a word (a favorite of ad creatives), it brings an extra swag or should we say an X factor. 

It's like this letter does a side hustle. I suppose we will all agree that X isn't an inherently rich alphabet. Take 10 seconds to think of as many words as you can with X. Repeat the same with say letter A or S. It will become obvious who's the deprived cousin. It's like to stay relevant, X had to reinvent itself. Survival of the fittest!

Language nerds might very well sneer at the audacity of X. But popular culture seems to have accepted this reinvention and probably doesn't mind 'xperimenting' further. Breaking away from linguistic conventions, this alphabet has dropped the axe on many long-established words and how. Slaying all the 'exes' in style, shall we say. 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay