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Xylophone is spelt with an “X” -- that’s wrong; xylophone zzzz-“X” -- I don’t see it! It should be a “z” up front. Next time you have to spell xylophone you should use a “Z.” And if someone says, “Hey that’s wrong,” say “No it aint! If you think that’s wrong then you need to have your head ‘Z’-rayed.” It’s like X was given enough to do so they had to promise it more. Okay, you won’t start a lot of words but we will give you a co-starring role in tic-tac-toe. And you will be acquainted with hugs and kisses. And you will mark the spot. And you will make writing Christmas easier. And it’s a deal, you will start xylophone -- are you happy X?

-Mitch Hedberg
“Mitch All Together: X,” 2003

Seemingly jovial. The celebrity of the Alphabet. A line crossing perpendicular through another line, symmetrical and set on a 45 angle. Although it has the shortest entry in the dictionary, it is so multifaceted and versatile that it naturally and synthetically shows up nearly everywhere and in nearly anything.

The twenty-fourth letter in the Latin Alphabet, named ex in the English language, represents 9 different sounds. Most frequently /ks/ as in box, fix, tax, and also generally /gz/ when used between to vowels as in exact and exit. As /z/ as in xylophone and anxiety, and /eks/ as in X ray and xonograph. Others include /ksh/ as in anxious, /k/ as in excite, /khz/ as in luxury, and it can also be silent as in Sioux.

X is more than just a letter, and more than just a sound. Standing alone or preceding a word and sometimes tagged with a hyphen, X becomes extra as in XL, extraterrestrial as in X-files, mutant as in X-men, and extreme as in Xgames.

But X is not only limited to language. It is iconic.

In mathematics it is the unknown variable that we solve for and previous to algebra it is the sign for multiplication. It stands for 10 as one of seven Roman numerals and it is the eleventh 1-digit numeral after 9 when used in the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) system.

Protean emblem, how to pin you down?
You are the unknown quantity in hiding
behind a blackboard's haze of wasted chalk,
mark on a treasure map a second look
proves innocent of place names or of bearings,
malefactor pursued through twenty chapters
to be unmasked by equally fictitious
detectives who would miss you in real life. […]

X has been mixed up in controversy.

It has substituted the name Christ in Christmas for over a millennia. Constantine formed the letter “X” as the symbol of “Christ,” being the initial of the name equivalent in Greek to ch. The abbreviation xmas is commonly used during the holiday, but widely unaccepted by persons who continue to believe it is debasing to Christ.

Also, although skeptic to accuracy, in 2007 X has been reported in the media to be a potentially banned letter in Saudi Arabia because of its affiliation to and resemblance of the cross.

It’s a film rating. Around the 1950s X-rated films, which actually lacked obscene or objectionable material, were released without The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) seal of approval. Over the last couple decades X-ratings have been designated for films with actual obscene or objectionable material such as pornography, and are not permitted to show in popular theatres. Today the NC-17 rating has taken its place.

X was the changed surname of a civil rights activist, symbolizing his rejection of a slave name and the absence of an inherited African name to take its place. Malcolm X, formerly Malcolm Little.

[…] Miss you-because you flourish so profusely,
straddling so many contexts (sacred, sinister,
rarefied, common): sparkling in the dome's
mosaic, you are the monogram of Christ
or instrument of Andrew's martyrdom;
or, white on black, the femurs crossed beneath
buccaneer's merry bogy. Black on yellow
warns more mildly: railroad tracks ahead. […]

X is randomly all around us.

As a symbol it commands attention. On any sign it cautions warning or prohibition of entry and on a list it suggests elimination. X’s can be found on stitched up lacerations in biology an xx represents female chromosomes while xy are male.

On a phone it can be dialed by the number 9. A typist drops the ring finger of his left hand to strike it on the keyboard just below the “S” and “D” on the home-row. Computer users click it to exit out of a message box, game, application, or browser.

One who is illiterate or physically incapable to sign a document can mark an X as their name on a legally if in the presence of a witness. Baseball hall-of-fame Roger Maris had his worst public relations encounter when the Fort Lauderdale News inaccurately reported that he cruelly marked a baseball with an X when a kid fan asked for his signature.

It is used as a label for someone who is removed socially from a person’s life; a former friend, relative, or romantic partner, as popularized in the famous George Strait country song “All my Exes live in Texas.” It is a generation used to describe North Americans born following the post-Second World War baby boom from 1961-1981.

On Family Feud it is accompanied with a rejecting buzzer emphasizing the contestant’s guess is wrong. In music entertainment it is the title of Coldplay’s album, x & y, a metaphor: the crossing of the axes.

An X is crossed arms in the cold, and crossed legs during yoga. X is printed as crop marks on a design layout.

[…] Sign of a kiss, and multiplying sign,
Caesar's 10, illiterate signature,
teacher's mark in the margin ("wrong again").
Antepenultimate character, you abut
a forking path that leads to the alphabet's
ultimate fizzle-snore in a comic strip
while you, in suchlike sagas, replace the eyes
of two-dimensional victims just machine gunned.

Unable to take form without a pause
and lifting of the pen, are you implying
that two strokes representing different meanings
cancel each other out, or one the other?
But one stroke leaves the other standing, starts
the latest round of Tic-Tac-Toe. We live
webbed in the world's converging decussations
no further away than our own shoelaces,
bemused by the plasticity of signs
which after some initial idle noticings
beckon for our attention from all sides:
stitch of a little girl's sampler (I85o),
weave in a wicker porch chair, fingers crossed
just now for luck; and here, facing the water,
sturdy tape bracing each staring window
in the gray lull before the hurricane hits.

-- Robert B. Shaw
“Solving for X,” 1999

X has plenty to do.