Hi all,

I wonder what is the meaning of X in the begining of a word.
I know it can be Ex, It can be in portugues - Sh.

What else it can be?

Thanks

Z sound as in xylophone or Xerxes.

or xenophobia

In reply to:

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wonder what is the meaning of X in the begining of a word

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I'm not aware that the leading X denotes any thing in particular.

jabcka,

I have just reread your post and wonder if you mean to say "pronunciation" instead of "meaning"? You indicate that x is pronounced 'sh' in Portuguese. If that's your question, x is pronounced like z at the beginning of a word in English, as Faldage pointed out.

Atenciosamente,
AnnaStrophic

Oh and one more thing, hearty welcome to jabcka.

Hi, jabcka, - an interesting problem you have set us.

I believe that it is also used to denote a "click" sound in transliterations of the click-languages like Xhosa (South Africa)

As for meaning it can be the unknown (X-rays, X Files) or Christ (Xmas). The latter is from the Greek letter chi, which looks like a Roman X.

...or Christ (Xmas). The latter is from the Greek letter chi, which looks like a Roman X.

I thought the " X " represented the cross... it even looks like the 'image' of *it being drug down the road...

the 'image' of *it being drug down the road...

There's a nice Christmas image.

Of course, to quote from the Christmas carol:

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom.
Sorrowing, sighing,
Bleeding, dying,
Sealed in a stone cold tomb.

There's a nice Christmas image

Or there's my favourite, the Coventry Carol:


Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day
This poor Youngling for Whom we sing
By, by, lully, lullay?

Herod the king, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever morn and day
For Thy parting neither say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.


http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/c/o/coventry.htm

Is somebody missing the point here? <eg>

Is somebody missing the point here?

Not at all. Here's the map - X marks the spot...

It just occurs to me (considering nunclage's point) that Xerxes should probably be pronounced "churcheez" or "jurcheez" rather than (my previous pronunciation ) "gzurkseez".
Edit: Oops, already addressed by the man himself below.. at least if we all agree it should be "zurxeez"

And what about Xavier? "Haveeur" or "Haveeay" (French, I think) or "gzaveeur"?

In other words, good question, jabcka (and greetings )

Xerxes should probably be pronounced "churcheez" or "jurcheez"

Actively, I think it's a transliteration of the letter xi, so it should be [kserkses].

Actively, I think

aw, thanks for that - you remembered! Our show opened last week, and the line, "Are you actively serious?" always gets a laugh - I just can't tell if it's a laugh of derision at the weird phrase, or a laugh of delight at my brilliant delivery.

Probably the latter. Actively, I have added actively, in this context, to my actual use vocabulary.

so it should be [kserkses]

Well, blow me down if I weren't actively right all along.

So how about Xavier="gsa-vee-ur", hmm?

'Xactly!

Heavens, where is Jo? The X form of the cross is called the St. Andrews Cross from the fact that he was said to have been crucified on a cross of that form. Hence, you can always identify St. Andrew in a stained glass window by the X-shaped cross which he is usually depicted with or leaning against.

St. Andrew is, of course, the patron saint of Scotland. Oh, sorry, I forgot -- jmh is English, although resident in Scotland.

I've also found this:

http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/45/4516.html

And its group:

http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/45/index.html

Enjoy it.

Welcome to you, jabcka. For you and the other new people: you can make a link clickable by putting url in front of it, and /url at the end of it, AND by putting both in these brackets: [ ]. Hmm--I wasn't going to do it in the explanation because I thought it wouldn't show, but I just http://decided to experiment. I will take the liberty of doing this to the 2 you gave. Also--I have found that I need to start a new line, whenever I put [url], because if the address is split into 2 lines, for some reason the http comes out doubled and the link won't work. Oh, also--I always Preview when I do links, and check to see that they do in fact work.

http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/45/4516.html

http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/45/index.html

Post-Preview comments: I see my experiment results...! Ideogram--now there's a word I don't see every day.

EDIT--When I clicked on each link, then tried to go Back and make my comment--all my typing had vanished! I had to click Forward again, where my only option was, of course, to hit Continue and post the post. What gives?

EDIT--When I clicked on each link, then tried to go Back and make my comment--all my typing had vanished! I had to click Forward again, where my only option was, of course, to hit Continue and post the post. What gives?

This has been happening to me more often than not, here, lately. The only recourse, Jackie, seems to be to immediately copy your text and click over to continue before you click for links and quotes (the "continue" screen seems to hold-up for some reason). But as long as you copy your post right away, you can just paste it back into the edit screen if it vanishes. OR, post and go back and edit-in the additional material as you find it (but, of course, with this option there's a chance some folks will click-in and read your incomplete post before it's finished and edited for typos). As to why this is happening so frequently all of a sudden...I dunno. Happens when my cache is clean, too.

It happens to me too. Hey I became an addict!

I know it can be Ex
How about "X" meaning "extreme"?