Twitter recently announced its new name, “x.” While the simplicity of this name might seem random or unoriginal, it actually holds historical significance. The letter ‘x’ has played a crucial role throughout history, representing various concepts like censorship, love, and inclusion. Moreover, it carries a strong association with Twitter, as users commonly use ‘x’ to signify a kiss at the end of a message. This rebranding could potentially signify Twitter’s efforts in becoming a more inclusive platform, highlighting its commitment to free expression and connecting people globally, allowing them to “mark” their spots on the internet..
In one of the most audacious — and widely mocked — rebrands in recent times, Twitter has become X. How this renaming will play out remains to be seen, but it’s yet another chapter in the story of a versatile letter that has most often referred to blanks, like “X factors” and “X marks the spot.”
The earliest known examples in English of X having a meaning beyond the simple letter are from Old English, when it could refer to “X height” or “X length.” That meaning gained traction in the 1600s, when X started being used in math for a variable or unknown. Though other meanings have accrued to the letter (including standing in for the Roman numeral for 10; kissing, as in “XO”; hard liquor; and abbreviations of “extreme” and “extra”) it’s that variable or blank meaning that tells most of the story of X.
In the 1940s, X picked up steam as a catch-all label. “X factor” started popping up in military circles, meaning, as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, “the aspects of a serviceman’s life that have no civilian equivalent.” From there the term spread to more general use. When you X something out, you eliminate it, a usage around since at least 1942. The first known use of X in regards to pornographic movies, from a 1950 report of the British Parliament, suggests the term was coined to label the unspeakable: “We recommend that a new category of films be established (which might be called ‘X’) from which children under 16 should be entirely excluded.” X is capable of not only filling a blank, but creating a bleep — or a XXXXing bleep.
Some weird-leaning pop culture phenomena have involved that same X — like the 1961 comic book “The X-Men,” which inspired many movies decades later, and the TV series “The X-Files.” In both cases, the X stands for something beyond the ken of the average person: mutants in the former, aliens in the latter. Human weirdos are represented by the letter too, like the groundbreaking LA punk band X.
So in a sense X might be a perfect name for Twitter, where so many folks like to make their mark and fill in the blank — if only the social media platform didn’t already have a name firmly entrenched in English. The wide awareness and use of “Twitter” and “tweet” make it likely that, in common usage at least, X will be X’d out.
Mark Peters is the author of “Bullshit: A Lexicon.”
Twitter has recently rebranded itself as “X,” which has been widely mocked. The letter X has historically been associated with blanks or unknown variables in math, but it has also gained other meanings over time, such as representing the Roman numeral for 10, abbreviations like “XO” or “extreme,” and even the label for pornographic movies. The letter has been frequently used to represent mysterious or unconventional concepts in pop culture, such as mutants in “The X-Men” and aliens in “The X-Files.” While X may be fitting for Twitter, its established name makes it unlikely that X will completely replace it.
Hashtags: #marks #lot #spots #Twitters #long #history
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