Nov 8 2023 - X is now on the spot

 

It has been quite a while since Twitter rebranded to X.  That was July.  Yesterday the change of name showed up on my Mailchimp template which you can see below. It is called X, formerly known as Twitter at the request of Elon Musk. After the first reference, the stylebook permits a writer to simply call the service as "X" or "the X platform".  It is from the font "Special Alphabets 4" from Monotype's Special Alphabets font family.  X is Elon Musk's favourite letter.  And the name X has great sentimental value. It was one of his previous companies - was merged with Confinit ywhich was then rebranded to become PayPal.  He subsequently purchased X.com from PayPal, and that was the reason cited - the name had "great sentimental value" to him.  Various faces of the platform, formerly accessible via usernames like @TwitterSupport or @TwitterSports, now go by handles like @Support.   Will X remain?  It is expected that it will be sued over copyright.  There are 900 active trademark registrations in the U.S. for the letter X. The most problematic for Musk is Microsoft and Meta have active trademarks for X.  It turns out to be a crowded space.

It seemed to take a while for Mailchimp to change to the new logo and name. I am expecting frosty leaves in the next little while.  Here's a Japanese Maple from a few years ago.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Oct 31 2022 - X Marks the Spot

 

X - is any real number.  In fact, x is a lot of things.  Then why does x mark the spot? The common answer is that it was first recorded in 1813.   As the location on a map for hidden treasure.   Another repeated usage is that it was supposedly  put into common usage by the British army, who performed executions by marking a piece of paper with a black x and positioning it on the heart of someone sentenced to death.  This seems strange to me, more of a form of torture.  I would think the British army knew how to shoot accurately. Another reference is that at the height of Chicago gangsterism in the 1920s that the specific phrase x marks the spot took on specific meaning.  When newspapers started to abstain from publishing pictures of actual corpses in the scenes of murders, the x was used on the bodiless photos to indicate where it had been positioned. As a result, spotted came to mean ‘murdered’, in the slang of that time, and to be put on the spot took on a specific implication. These seem more like urban myths.  These seem so unsatisfying for a letter that has many applications.  And it has a long, long history.  I wondered why Wikipedia's entry was about movies.  I eventually found the most comprehensive history of the letter X at symbolsage.com HERE. The picture below comes from the article.  It is the unknown and the known, it is rejection and a kiss, it is death and danger.  So much going on with x.

The articles conclusion: "Each of the letters in the alphabet has a history, but X is the most potent and mysterious. Since its inception, it has been used to represent the unknown, and has more social and technical uses than any other letter in the English alphabet. Nowadays, we use the symbol in mathematics, to mark places on a map, to indicate our choice of candidates on a ballot, to indicate an error, and many more." That seems to me to be "spot on". And our photo?  Lake effects fog and mist yesterday morning shrouded the landscape.  I thought the pictures I'd taken would be poor, but it turns out with some processing, some of them are quite nice.

Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com

June 8 2021 - Middle Name X

 

When I worked for Imperial Oil, everyone was deemed to have a middle name.  This was in relation to print-out identification.  The "header" would have the person's name in large letters - first name, middle initial and last name. These big format perforated print-outs would be separated and then sorted alphabetically.   Likely they were concerned about distinguishing between people with the same name. There were two fellows in IT in Imperial with the same name.  And what if one of them didn't have a middle name?  When a person didn't have a middle name, it was designated X.  So whenever I see an X as the middle initial I am intrigued.   Who has a name starting with X?  Lots of people from lots of places do.  The easy one is Xavier.  There's even a variant of this name Xzavier.  Now I consider that strange.   But then there's Xaver - the German form, and Xavior, an English rare form, and Xaviera the feminine form of Xavier.  And the diminutive form?  Xavi- that's Catalan.  There are 21,711 people in the U.S. with the first name Xavier.  It is the 1318th most popular first name.  It is trending towards popularity as shown by babnameshub.com.  There are lots of baby name websites. So back to names starting with X, the list I looked through had 79 names starting with X.  This name has intrigue and mystery to me as the place originals were unknown to me, including Asturian, Hmong, and Galician.   I wonder if there is anywhere that still has a "need" for a designated middle initial.  Certainly the latest addition to the Royal Family has a middle name - Diana.  And the first name?  Lilibet or Lili for short. Lots of history in those names. Lilycrest Gardens this week - it looks wonderful this year.

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