X's, crosses as kisses and as blessings

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:41 PM -0400 7/4/08, Mark Mandel wrote:
>On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 1:32 PM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:
>>
>>  Allow me to clarify my question, which is not about "hugs and
>>kisses," though
>>  thanks for the info on the latter. Xs and Os used to signify "hugs
>>and kisses"
>>  started apparently in the 20th century--later than the use of Xs alone for
>>  kisses.
>>  Did X-shapes meaning kisses in epistles follow from a
>>differently-shaped cross
>>  mark in epistles signifying blessings? An evolution from religious to
>>  romantic.
>>  What do you make of the Defoe, White, and Hyde texts?
>
>I have no thoughts about the citations, but it occurred to me last
>night that the use of "X" for a kiss could come from a kind of
>onomatopoeia: the usual English pronunciation of "x", /ks/, for the
>sound of a kiss (a voiceless ingressive rounded bilabial affricate, if
>you're logging the play-by-play). It is closer than that of any other
>letter, since we don't have a psi. Probably not proveable, but what do
>y'all think of it as a hypothetical alternative or supplementary
>origin to "X" as blessing?
>
>--
Or, if you're in the market for a W(er)AG, that same usual
pronunciation of "x" is what you get if you delete the vowel of
"kiss" /kIs/, hence k's.

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org