The Letter X
Poor letter X -- It really has a lot of problems.
Sure, the letter W suffers somewhat from it's name: Double-U, or in Canadian, Doobluh-Vay, but at least it gets decent representation in the dictionary.
But letter X? Hardly any words start with X, and those that do don't even sound like X -- they sound like Z. What's a letter to do?
Not much, it seems. X is relegated to marking the spot, representing mathematic values, substituting for a signature in Old Westerns and providing warnings about naughty films.
It's not a glamorous life.
X also serves double duty as a short-cut. There are Hot-X-Buns instead of "Hot Cross Buns" and the usual slew of Xmas-related things, which led to the first Anti-X slogan: "Don't take the Christ out of Christmas."
X is the representation of the unknown. It is the quintessential QUOI? which in French means Vive la croissant, and in English translates roughly to huh? A perfect example of the unknown X is Generation X. In this case, X can only represent that which it is not, which is a cool name like "Baby Boomers." Fox gave us the unknown of The X-Files and CBS told us to expect the unexpected with the X-Factor. Although each show was very different, both were full of nasty creatures you'd hope to never see again.
