The letter X. It’s the twenty-fourth letter of the alphabet. It’s been used to mark buried treasure, as a symbol for sex, and to make things seem cooler than they actually are.
It’s also fucking bullshit.
I want you to think back to elementary school. You may not remember it well, but there’s one thing I bet you do remember. Whenever you did shit with the alphabet during class, X was always being a fucking dick.
If you ever needed to use a word that started with X you had to use some dumb shit like “X-ray”. I remember I had this Animal Alphabet pop-up book when I was a kid that had “X-ray fish” for X. What the fuck is an X-ray fish? What child wants to pick up a pop-up book with tigers and elephants and see a fucking X-ray fish? Is that even a real animal?
Often the teacher would propose a loophole, just to make the letter X more manageable. “You can just use any word with an X in it” they would say, but even then, it usually meant that half the class used “fox”, the other half used “box”, and that one kid used “xylophone” because he was a fucking douchebag.
There was, however, another solution. Every once in a while the teacher would say “you can just skip X”. Nobody really questioned this decision. After all, everybody knew that X was a total pain in the ass. What they didn’t know was that there was a much darker secret at hand.
So what is this dark secret? Well first, think about this:
If you ask a kid what sounds letters make, he/she will tell you that B makes a “buh” sound, T makes a “tah” sound, E makes an “ee” sound, etc... There are, of course, exceptions, but for the most part they’ll be able to come up with something.
What sound does X make?
Most people would probably say “ex”, but deep down we know that that’s just E + X. What does X sound like on its own? When I came to this discovery, I thought long and hard and all I could come up with was “cks”.
“Focks” (fox)
“Bocks” (box)
“Ecks-ray” (x-ray)
“Eckstreme” (extreme)
It seemed to work for pretty much every word I tried, except (eckscept) “xylophone”, but that’s cool because the dictionary is fucking wrong and “xylophone” clearly starts with a Z.
Literally the only reason that anyone remembers that “xylophone” starts with an X is because of how completely stupid it is. Also, “xenophobia”. Why are you guys trying to steal Z’s spotlight? Don’t you think she’s shafted enough as it is? Then again, who the fuck has ever actually had to use the word “xenophobia”?
So really, here’s the question: if every single occurrence of the letter X in the English language can be replaced with either “cks” or “z”, why do we even need it?
The truth is we don’t. The letter X is a lie and the real reason it was so hard to think of things that started with X when you were a kid was because X always has, and always will be a stupid made-up fairytale letter.
So seriously, from now on I intend to spread the word that the alphabet secretly only has twenty-five letters.
The letter X is fucking bullshit.
-Thomas Ridout
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| “Yeah, that’ll work.” |
I want you to think back to elementary school. You may not remember it well, but there’s one thing I bet you do remember. Whenever you did shit with the alphabet during class, X was always being a fucking dick.
If you ever needed to use a word that started with X you had to use some dumb shit like “X-ray”. I remember I had this Animal Alphabet pop-up book when I was a kid that had “X-ray fish” for X. What the fuck is an X-ray fish? What child wants to pick up a pop-up book with tigers and elephants and see a fucking X-ray fish? Is that even a real animal?
 |
| “To be fair, this particular pop-up book also used fucking umbrella birds for U.” |
There was, however, another solution. Every once in a while the teacher would say “you can just skip X”. Nobody really questioned this decision. After all, everybody knew that X was a total pain in the ass. What they didn’t know was that there was a much darker secret at hand.
 |
| “Speaking of dark secrets, why will nobody else acknowledge that this movie was the most terrifying thing ever marketed to children? This has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of this note, but I just thought you all should know that this movie is not ‘a perfect treat for the entire family!’ unless your family is into murder, syringes, and insanity.” |
If you ask a kid what sounds letters make, he/she will tell you that B makes a “buh” sound, T makes a “tah” sound, E makes an “ee” sound, etc... There are, of course, exceptions, but for the most part they’ll be able to come up with something.
What sound does X make?
Most people would probably say “ex”, but deep down we know that that’s just E + X. What does X sound like on its own? When I came to this discovery, I thought long and hard and all I could come up with was “cks”.
“Focks” (fox)
“Bocks” (box)
“Ecks-ray” (x-ray)
“Eckstreme” (extreme)
It seemed to work for pretty much every word I tried, except (eckscept) “xylophone”, but that’s cool because the dictionary is fucking wrong and “xylophone” clearly starts with a Z.
 |
| “Seriously? An X? Go fuck yourself.” |
So really, here’s the question: if every single occurrence of the letter X in the English language can be replaced with either “cks” or “z”, why do we even need it?
The truth is we don’t. The letter X is a lie and the real reason it was so hard to think of things that started with X when you were a kid was because X always has, and always will be a stupid made-up fairytale letter.
 |
| “Even Q had “quail”. Fucking X...” |
The letter X is fucking bullshit.
-Thomas Ridout
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