💖💖💖 Using 'x' for 'kisses' - 6 Minute English

Neil: Hello. Welcome to 6 Minute English, I'm Neil.

Rob: And I'm Rob.

Neil: We're going to be looking at a letter

from the English alphabet. It’s a letter

which has a particular meaning when

used at the end of a piece of informal

writing such as letters, emails, texts and

messages.

Rob: I’m very EXcited.

Neil: Ha ha, very good, very good Rob!

Rob: My EXpectations are really high.

Neil: Yep, that's another good one.

Rob: Is it an EXtraordinary letter?

Neil: OK, thank you Rob, that’s enough of

your jokes. I’m getting EXasperated!

Oh, now you’ve got me at it! Well no prizes

for guessing what letter we’re focussing

on today?

Rob: Why?

Neil: No, it’s not Y.

Rob: No, no. I didn’t mean the letter ‘y’,

I meant the word ‘why’, as in - why are

there no prizes?

Neil: Because of all the not so subtle

clues you’ve been giving. The letter is X.

Rob: Yes. Exactly.

Neil: Alright, I think we get the idea!

Before we go much further, let’s have a

question. English has 26 letters. Which

language has 74 letters? Is it

a) Khmer, b) Hindi or c) Armenian?

Any ideas Rob?

Rob: An excellent question but quite

obscure, I’m going to say b) Hindi.

Neil: Well, I'll have the answer later on.

Now, Rob, what does the letter X all by

itself at the end of a message mean?

Rob: Well, it means a kiss. The more

kisses, the more affection you are

showing.

Neil: Where does this concept of putting

an X to mean a kiss, come from? Dr Laura

Wright is from the Faculty of English at

Cambridge University and she appeared

on the BBC Radio 4 programme

Word of Mouth. When does she say this

practice started and where does it come from?

Well, we’ve been adding Xs for kisses at

the bottom of letters since at least 1763.

So the very first one we know of had seven

Xs. I have to say, I haven’t gone to seven ever.

We get X from the Roman alphabet which

got it from the Greek alphabet,

pronounced /ks/ and the Romans...

Presenter: That’s nearly a kiss, isn’t it?

Yes it is, isn’t it? I think a penny’s

just dropped there.

Presenter: It has, clunk.

Neil: What do we learn about the origins

of the X for kisses?

Rob: Well, it’s been used since at least

1763, and it comes from the Roman

alphabet and they got it from the Greeks.

Neil: And why did this come to mean a kiss?

Rob: Well, Dr Wright suggests it’s because

of the original pronunciation - /ks/.

Neil: And at the point the presenter made

the connection, didn’t he?

Rob: Yes, he did. And Dr Wright used a

phrase for when someone suddenly

understands something,

particularly something that is obvious to

others. She said the penny has just dropped.

Neil: And this has got nothing to do with a

penny, which is small coin, actually

dropping anywhere. But the presenter

makes a joke by using a word we use for

the noise of something falling, clunk.

Rob: Although, to be honest, a penny

would never really clunk. That’s more like

the noise two heavy metal objects would

make - the clunk of a car door, for example.

Neil: Let’s listen to that exchange again.

Well, we’ve been adding Xs for kisses at

the bottom of letters since at least 1763.

So the very first one we know of had seven Xs.

I have to say I haven’t gone to seven ever.

We get X from the Roman alphabet which

got it from the Greek alphabet,

pronounced /ks/ and the Romans...

Presenter: That’s nearly a kiss, isn’t it?

Yes it is, isn’t it? I think a penny’s

just dropped there.

Presenter: It has, clunk.

Neil: One thing to note about putting an X

at the end of a communication is that it is

not something you do for everyone. It’s

usually only to friends and family

members, people you might kiss in real

life. Professor Nils Langer from

the University of Bristol told a story about

a colleague of his who wasn’t too familiar

with this convention. What was her mistake?

A colleague of mine from Bristol, who... when

she came over from Germany thought

that X was just the normal way of closing a

letter in England and so she would finish

any letter with Xs, even a letter to the

Inland Revenue. We never heard, really,

how the Inland Revenue responded

to these letters with these Xs.

Presenter: They docked her another 20

quid, I think!

Neil: What was her mistake, Rob?

Rob: She didn’t realise that you don’t put

an X on every communication. So she

even put it on business letter including

one to the Inland Revenue, which is the

government department in the UK that

deals with tax.

Neil: We don’t know how the tax people

felt about the letter with kisses. But the

presenter joked about what their

response would have been.

Rob: Yes, he joked that they probably

docked her another 20 quid. To dock

money is to cut the amount of money you

are expecting to receive and a quid is a

slang word for a British pound.

Neil: Now time for the answer to our

question. English has 26 letters. Which

language has 74 letters? Is it…

a) Khmer, b) Hindi or c) Armenian?

Rob: I guessed b) Hindi.

Neil: Well, I suppose it was a one in three

chance, but not correct this time. The

answer is a) Khmer. Very well done if you

knew that. Now on to the vocabulary we

looked at in this programme.

Rob: We started with a penny. A penny is

an English coin.

A hundred pennies makes one pound sterling.

Neil: The phrase 'the penny has dropped'

means that someone has suddenly

understood something.

Rob: A clunk is the noise of two heavy

objects hitting each other.

Neil: The Inland Revenue is the UK’s tax

authority.

Rob: And if you dock money from someone,

you reduce the amount of money you pay

them. For example, as an employee in the

UK your tax is automatically docked from

your salary.

Neil: And finally, a quid, which is a slang

term for one pound sterling. Right, before

they start docking our pay for being late,

it’s time to say goodbye. Find us on

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, our

App and of course the website

bbclearningenglish.com.

See you soon, goodbye.

Rob: Bye bye!