One-Letter Words, a Dictionary

Craig Conley

• Publisher: Harper
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9780061751325
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Education General
• Index: Social Sciences

Merriam-Webster, move over!

Until now, no English dictionary ever found the fun or the fascination in revealing the meanings of letters. One-Letter Words, a Dictionary illuminates the more than 1,000 surprising definitions associated with each letter in the English alphabet. For instance, Conley uncovers seventy-six distinct uses of the letter X, the most versatile, most printed letter in the English language. Using facts, figures, quotations, and etymologies, the author provides a complete and enjoyable understanding of the one-letter word.

Conley teaches us that each letter's many different meanings span multiple subjects, including science—B denotes a blood type and also is a symbol for boron on the periodic table of elements—and history—in the Middle Ages, B was branded on a blasphemer's forehead. With the letter A, he reminds us that A is not only a bra size, but also a musical note.

One-Letter Words, a Dictionary is a rich, thought-provoking, and curious compendium of the myriad definitions attributed to each letter of the English alphabet. This book is the essential desk companion, gift, or reference volume for a vast array of readers: wordsmiths, puzzle lovers, teachers, students, librarians, and armchair linguists will all find One-Letter Words, a Dictionary a must-have.

X IN PRINT AND PROVERB

1. (in literature) In Rootabaga Stories, Carl Sandburg tells how the letter X was invented by “the men who change the alphabets.” In three separate stories, these men create the X to represent crossed fingers, wildcat claws, and crossed arms.

2. (in literature) In Joseph Conrad’s Secret Agent, Professor X is an anarchist who fastens explosives to himself so that he can kill himself and anyone nearby at the touch of a button.

3. (in literature) The Man Who Broke Out of the Letter X is a 1984 novel by Robert Priest.

4. (in literature) As a sociable letter: “The letter X is equally sociable [to O], because it too neighbors most of the letter, and avoids only 8 of them.”—Simon Singh, The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

5. (in literature) As a harsh letter: “He is, as I see it and in my opinion, Amiable, Benevolent, Courteous, Dignified, Enamored, Firm, Gallant, Honorable, Illustrious, Loyal, Manly, Noble, Openhearted, Pleasing, Quick-witted, Rich, the Ss that everybody knows, and then Truthful, Valiant, X isn’t included because it’s a harsh letter, Y is the same I, and Z is Zealous in protecting your honor.”—Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

6. (in literature) “X is Davy’s publichouse in upper Leeson street.”—James Joyce, Ulysses

7. (in literature) the main character in Composition No. 1: A Novel, by Marc Saporta. “‘The apartment door opens on a long slender figure in a black hat.’ X visiting Marianne, who says ‘My nose is my despair. I wish it were shorter.’ X thinks: ‘How to keep from telling her…that she is wonderfully desirable?’” (from the reading notes by Nick Montfort).

8. (in literature) As a fatal letter: “Most cultural and linguistic investments in the letter x carry the grain of something inherently fatal.”—Marina Roy, Sign After the X

9. (in literature) “X is crossed swords, a battle: who will win we do not know, so the mystics made it the sign of destiny and the algebraists the sign of the unknown.”—Victor Hugo, quoted in ABZ by Mel Gooding

10. n. Distance between top and bottom of a printed letter without an ascender or descender.

11. n. A final judgment day taught by the Church of the SubGenius in the book Revelation X, in which alien saucers arrive on earth to initiate the end times (also known as “the Rupture”). What happens when X-Day comes and goes, and the saucers haven’t shown?—Mitchell Porter

12. n. A written representation of the letter.

13. n. A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter.

CARDS, LIQUOR, ADULT MOVIES

14. n. A playing card of low rank.

15. adj. (obsolete) A motion picture rating prohibiting admittance of anyone under 17 years old. (See G, R.)[T]he R-rated brotherly chat for which he’d detoured through Seattle was in danger of being preempted by Everett’s conflicting role in an eventually to be X-rated performance with the Sad Abdomen Lady!—David James Duncan, The Brothers K

16. adj. Strength of ale (X being weakest, XXX being strongest).
Florence MacCabe takes a crubeen and a bottle of double X for supper every Saturday.—James Joyce, Ulysses

ON PARCHMENT PAPER

17. n. A kiss, put at the end of a personal letter. You can count the Xs as kisses.—Julian Barnes, Staring at the Sun

18. n. A signature, such as an illiterate person’s. The town I was born in was made by a crossing of tracks. A rare and momentous event, this intersection, for those two tracks had passed over mile after mile of prairie as if the earth they lay on were space through which they were falling—two lives, two histories, two kinds of loneliness—with no idea they were converging, and must cross; yet in the moment of their meeting they were silent, for what did they compose then but an illiterate’s X?—William H. Gass, The Tunnel

19. n. A precise point on a map or diagram, as in “X marks the spot.” X marks the place where victims fall / as well as buried treasure.—Rebecca McClanahan, “X”

20. n. Incorrect answer (as on a test); mistake.

21. v. To cross out.
I passed through the month the way people X out days on a calendar, one after the one.—Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

22. v. To mark with an X.
Jane is the fourth from the left (an X over her head shows which she is, otherwise hard to recognise her).—Georges Perec, Life: A User’s Manual

23. v. To indicate a choice (as on a ballot).

24. n. An indication of where to sign one’s name. “Sign there,” he says, his dirty finger on the red X.—Edward Abbey, The Fool’s Progress

CHRIS CROSS

25. n. Crossed swords.
X signifies crossed swords, combat—who will be victor? Nobody knows—that is why philosophers used x to signify fate, and the mathematicians took it for the unknown.—Victor Hugo, Voyages and Excursions

26. n. Christ, as in Xmas, or Xian.

27. n. The word Chris.

28. n. Something arbitrarily designated X.
Everyone wants a consoling myth. And the consolation either takes the form of an assurance that X, whatever it was when, like every dog, it had its day, was singular, solitary, and unique, and that nothing like it could possibly happen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Introduction
• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Credits
• Copyright
• About the Publisher