X Is For What Now?: A Historical Inquiry You Probably Never Considered

You know this game: A is for Apple, B is for Banana, X is usually for Xylophone or X-ray. But as it turns out, these X words were coined in the nineteenth century. So what did people use to represent X before then?

First, a bit of background:

X-ray: 1895

X-ray: 1895

In 1895, William Conrad Röntgen was experimenting with vaccuum tubes when he noticed that some invisible, unknown ray was causing a screen to fluoresce when placed near aluminium. Not entirely sure what he was observing, Röntgen called them "X-rays." The name stuck, and Röntgen went on to win the Nobel Prize. But the word probably wasn't a likely candidate for alphabet books until taking x-rays became commonplace in doctor's offices. Ideally, it's nice to have a word that children will have a reason to use; I don't know about you, but I have never met a physicist under 4 years of age.

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Xylophone: 1860s

Xylophone: 1860s

Wait, wait, xylophones have been around forever, right? Well, kind of. Xylophone-like instruments date back to antiquity, but the modern xylophone is a product of the mid-nineteenth century. The Oxford English Dictionary records the first use of the word in 1866. Why xylophone? "Xylo" is from the Greek for wood, and "phone" essentially means sound or voice. It makes sense, doesn't it?

Source: growingtreetoys.com  /  via: growingtreetoys.com

Prepare yourself. Here's a sampling of what they used before 1860:


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