It took me a long period of searching to find the meaning of "xiape". It is the title of a volume of
e.e. cummings poems. It was maddeningly difficult to find, but here it is:


"XIAPE, the title of Cummings's tenth "bookofpoems," is the Greek
salutation meaning "greetings" or "rejoice." First published in 1950,
this volume, which includes"dying is fine)but Death," "so many
selves(so many fiends and gods," and "no time ago," is newly
offset from Cummings's Complete Poems 1904-1962, edited by
George James Firmage. "

Xiape, Bill!
And how does one pronounce the word?
Shappay?

Thanks for more e.e.cummings info. I think I'm going to get into some rediscovery.

A Greek friend once told me that a Greek X is pronounced with a hard H sound. My screen name happens to mean happiness in Greek, and is pronounced Hara, according to him. The same might apply here.

Welcome back, prodigal daughter. The Greek character that looks like X is pronounced like unto a German ch (of the harder ach variety, not the softer ich variety, if I'm not mistaken). The letter usually transliterated with an x (the upper case version looks like three parallel horizontal lines; the lower case like a backwards numeral 3 with some extra stuff at the top and bottom) is pronounced, in Classical Greek anyway, as a ks and in English pronunciations of the Greek as a z. Xiape, assuming it to be a transliteration and not an attempt to represent Greek letters with a Roman character set, would be pronounced something like ksee-ah-pay in Greek or, probably, zy-uh-pee in English.

xara! Good heavens, hel-LO! I'm so glad you see you! I was so sure you had gone for good that I didn't wish you a happy birthday. Happy (very) belated, anyway. "H"ara...is that how you pronounce it? Confess I've been thinking of it as Zara.

 ee                                             
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   might have         a reason for CaLLinG               
                had                                   

his tenth (X) book I APE    Did he? 

Like for example...don't we all?

No, I pronounce it zara, that's just how he pronounced the word that is spelled the same way.

And thanks for the warm welcome back!

Like xy.em, sylose, xylaphone - thanks, Xara

In reply to:

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his tenth (X) book I APE Did he?

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That's thinking like a poet--or 1 poet, milum. Reverse it and you get epics...sortof.