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What's up with the letter

What's up with the letter "X"?

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We have Expert, Exit, Excited, Extra, Etcetera.
Since the letter X is pronounced EX anyway, why do we feel compelled to stick an E before the X anyway? Why not Xit, Xtra, Xpert? Not as common usage, but official in the dictionary change? Is anyone seeing the letters Xit going to try to pronouce it something like Ksit?

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Originally posted by sonhouse
Is anyone seeing the letters Xit going to try to pronouce it something like Ksit?
Only someone named Xavier.

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Originally posted by HandyAndy
Only someone named Xavier.
... and Xerxes

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While we're at it, let's fix up the C and K and S and Z letters. Must drive language students crazy figuring out the pronunciation.
Kat
muZe
reSeive

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Originally posted by Kewpie
...


reSeive
Reeseev... down with ie and ei... no one knows when to use them anyway!~

1 edit
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myooz

silent e is lame.


Originally posted by Phlabibit
myooz

silent e is lame.
laym.

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Originally posted by JS357
laym.
D'oh!~

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Originally posted by JS357
laym.
It's not Laim?

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Back in the 1950s in a "white Australia" they taught us a 44-letter alphabet that we could use for pronunciation. No diphthongs, pairs or ambiguous sounds. It even used to bob up in dictionaries. Nowadays everyone is trying to learn everyone else's language it's been extended so far that you couldn't teach it to primary school kids. Doubt if I could even read it now, but it doesn't matter, that's why they invented pictograms, isn't it?

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Originally posted by sonhouse
We have Expert, Exit, Excited, Extra, Etcetera.
Erm... There's no X in Et Cetera...

Since the letter X is pronounced EX anyway,

Not in all languages, and not in combination with any other letter. You don't chop wood with an a-ex, do you? Or wear tuhexedos to parties?

Why not Xit, Xtra, Xpert? Not as common usage, but official in the dictionary change? Is anyone seeing the letters Xit going to try to pronouce it something like Ksit?

Yes. Unless they're Anglophone, in which case they're probably going to pervert them to Zit, Ztra and Zpert, as they already did with words like Xylophone and Xenophobia. But in most other languages, including the ones in which those words originate, the X is pronounced as X, not as Ex or Z.

Richard

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Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Erm... There's no X in Et Cetera...
I am guessing sonhouse pronounces it "Ex-set-rah". 😉

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Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Erm... There's no X in Et Cetera...

[b]Since the letter X is pronounced EX anyway,


Not in all languages, and not in combination with any other letter. You don't chop wood with an a-ex, do you? Or wear tuhexedos to parties?

Why not Xit, Xtra, Xpert? Not as common usage, but official in the dictionary change? Is anyone seeing the letters X ...[text shortened]... he ones in which those words originate, the X is pronounced as X, not as Ex or Z.

Richard
You haven't learned to read? I gave a series that I didn't want to Xtend more than a few Xamples and used the word Etcetera as you would normally in such a situation, of course there are Xceptions😉

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Originally posted by Kewpie
Back in the 1950s in a "white Australia" they taught us a 44-letter alphabet that we could use for pronunciation. No diphthongs, pairs or ambiguous sounds. It even used to bob up in dictionaries. Nowadays everyone is trying to learn everyone else's language it's been extended so far that you couldn't teach it to primary school kids. Doubt if I could even read it now, but it doesn't matter, that's why they invented pictograms, isn't it?
There are three more letters in the Swedish alphabet - all of which vowels:

Å pronounced 'o' like in 'more'

Ä pronounced something like 'ai' in 'hair'

Ö pronounced something like 'u' in 'further'

We only use W in names and imported foreign words too, of course.

Well, this was just my contribution to this thread.

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Originally posted by sonhouse
We have Expert, Exit, Excited, Extra, Etcetera.
Since the letter X is pronounced EX anyway, why do we feel compelled to stick an E before the X anyway? Why not Xit, Xtra, Xpert? Not as common usage, but official in the dictionary change? Is anyone seeing the letters Xit going to try to pronouce it something like Ksit?
What about Xmas. The X in this case is pronounced "christ".