Last updated on October 14, 2019
X is For XYZ Affair….
XYZ Affair And 40 words that start with X is the title given to my note for the day 24 with the A to Z Blog Challenge. As the day is fast approaching the finishing line. Just three more letters to go to touch the finishing line.
Yes, today is the turn of the 24th letter in the Alphabet, that is: “X”
XYZ Affair, the beginning or origin of this word is very interesting. The World Encyclopedia says, and I quote: “It came from a word used by the Semites, who once lived in Syria and Palestine. They named it samekh, their word for fish, and adapted an Egyptian hieroglyphic, or picture symbolized to represent fish.
The Greeks later took the symbol into their alphabet and used the letter to represent the sound of ch. The Romans used the letter to represent the same sound, but changed its shape slightly.”
“It is considered as the 24th letter most frequently used the letter in books, newspapers and other printed material in English. This letter is used alone or in combination with other letters.
Often stands for the word “Christ” as in “Xmas. X is also the Roman numeral for ten.
Also, it is used in physical science and in mathematics to denote an unknown quantity or a quantity that was at first unknown, as in X-ray.
In arithmetic problems, x is the sign of multiplication. And in describing measurements, x represents the word by, as in 9’x12’; or nine by twelve feet.”
Now come to the XYZ Affair:
This was the name given to a controversial exchange of diplomatic proposals between France and the United States in 1797.
The relationship between the two nations strained and France put forward outrageous demands.
These were made by three French agents and later they were known as X Y and Z. The fighting between the two countries began at sea though the war was never declared.
It all started while France was at war with Great Britain. The British had captured many French ships in the war.
And France has to depend on American ships to carry on the trade. But the French became enraged at the Americans in 1796, when the U.S. British Jay Treaty took effect and the treaty failed to guarantee American rights to trade with France and they began to seize American ships and cargoes.
The friction continued…. Read more about that here at this link. XYZ Affair
XYZ Affair – Conclusion: 40 words that start with X
A further search on the internet found yet another revealing information about the letter X.
The post author Paul Anthony Jones wrote on the pages of mentalfloss, and I quote: “…X has never been a common initial letter in English, and even with today’s enormous vocabulary you can still only expect around 0.02 percent of the words in a dictionary to be listed under it. But why not try boosting your vocabulary with these 40 words that start with X.
Source:
World Book
Wikipedia and Mentalfloss
Published on: Apr 27, 2013 @ 17:17
Last updated on October 14, 2019
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