"A whole lot of history behind 'x' and 'o,' kiss and hug"

[Stephen Goranson]

Thanks Bonnie. I commented there:
Oops. I forgot that in 2009 Benjamin Zimmer posted on American Dialect Society list and interesting text from 1905.
http://books.google.com/books?id=gPgaAAAAYAAJ&...
The State v. James E. Kelley, Dec. 12, 1905
Reports of cases determined by the Supreme Court of the state of Missouri
Vol. 191, p. 685 (1906)
"1000 million X O
"Yours forever
"I will kiss Cicil for you now."
Prosecutrix, her mother and a banker in Bolivar testified that this
letter was in defendant's handwriting. Prosecutrix also testified that
defendant told her that when he wrote X and O he meant hugs and
kisses. [end passage quoted]
The sequence "hugs and kisses" may be more common than "kisses and hugs." Perhaps that goes along with a reanalysis of xoxo--the sequence oxox seems more rare-- in which some consider X a hug and O a kiss?
________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Bonnie Taylor-Blake [b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 9:12 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "A whole lot of history behind 'x' and 'o,' kiss and              hug"

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 6:47 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> with mention of ADS-L and Ben

And Stephen Goranson, who is probably too humble to mention his own
appearance in the article.

: )

(Thanks for sharing the link, Stephen.)

-- Bonnie

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