One-Letter Words, a Dictionary (19 page)
Read One-Letter Words, a Dictionary Online
Authors: Craig Conley
Tags: #Social Science, #Popular Culture, #Reference, #General
FACTS AND FIGURES
51.
“The V in cricket is the area of the field that falls between mid on and mid off.”
—Dr. John Burkardt
W IN PRINT AND PROVERB
1. (in literature)
“‘Are you the only man in the world that never must go to the W?’ she would jeer.”
—D. H. Lawrence,
Mr. Noon.
The
W
here is short for “water closet.”
2. (in literature)
“Reasonable old Bertram, always trying to throw oil on the troubled w’s.”
—P. G. Wodehouse,
Right Ho, Jeeves.
The
w
here is short for
waters.
3. (in literature)
“And sprawling W’s, and V’s, and
Y’s, / Gaped prodigiously.”
—Robert Southey, quoted in
The Alphabet Abecedarium
by Richard Firmage
4.
n.
A written representation of the letter.
5.
n.
A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter.
SCIENTIFIC MATTERS
6.
n.
(biology)
Tryptophan,
an amino acid.
7.
n.
(biology)
A female sex chromosome in which the female has two kinds of sex chromosomes.
8.
n.
(chemistry)
The symbol for the element tungsten in the periodic table.
PEOPLE, PLACES, THINGS
9.
n.
something arbitrarily designated W (e.g., a person, place, or other thing).
Books you were going to write with letters for titles.
Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but
W is wonderful. O yes, W.
—James Joyce,
Ulysses
Should I marry W.? Not if she won’t tell me the other letters in her name.
—Woody Allen,
The Complete
Prose of Woody Allen
10.
n.
The twenty-third in a series.
11.
n.
Something having the shape of a W.
But the ironical thing, which could have been foreseen long ago, is that the [puzzle] piece the dead man holds between his fingers is shaped like a W.
—Georges Perec,
Life: A User’s Manual
He remembered seeing from the air that there were two or three small lakes among them, one almost as large as the one on which he had landed earlier, but shaped like a crooked, flattened letter W.
—Sue Henry,
Sleeping Lady: An Alex Jensen Mystery
12.
n.
Someone called W.
Still, they seemed to get along politely enough, Miss
H serving Mrs. W tea in the drawing room with a civility that was one notch up from frosty, and
Mrs. W seeming slightly embarrassed and modestly grateful.
—Iain Banks,
The Business
MISCELLANEOUS
13.
n.
Any spoken sound represented by the letter.
The sound vibration of the consonant W means “two ways of descending light.”
—Joseph E. Rael,
Tracks of Dancing Light: A Native American Approach to
Understanding Your Name
Like his father, and Grandfather Darwin as well, he tended to stammer, having special difficulties with the letter w.
—E. Janet Browne,
Charles Darwin: Voyaging
14.
n.
The twenty-third letter of the English alphabet.
File me under W / because I wonce / was / a woman.
—Marge Piercy, “The Secretary Chant”
15.
n.
“Double U” or “double V.”
16.
n.
Terror; the mark of death.
Terror is a one letter word—W.
—Tagline for the 1974 film
W,
directed by Richard Quine
17.
n.
The twenty-third section in a piece of music.
18.
n.
W engine:
“an internal combustion engine with three sets of cylinders arranged side by side in three planes so that a cross section would have the shape of a W.”—Dr. John Burkardt
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 again; or it imitates the pooh-pooh of condescension…, insisting that things like X happen all the time, almost nonstop if you are so stupid as to have to be told.
—William H. Gass,
The Tunnel
That x only looks like an x, something I know well.
In fact it is a manifestation of y, something I don’t.
—Nick Curry, explaining “the deep otherness of the superficially familiar things” a Westerner sees in Japan—“Superlegitimacy: Passion and Ecstasy of a Tokyo Train Driver,” IMomus.com
29.
n.
An arbitrary point in time.
How many millions have been murdered since X?
—William H. Gass,
The Tunnel
30.
n.
Crossed with.
31.
n.
Something with an X shape,
such as a cross.
X-shaped canvas folding chairs with whorled feet.
—Georges Perec,
Life: A User’s Manual
His body had the shape of a sloppy letter X—arms stretched over his head, along the edge of the back pillows, legs open in a wide fork.
—Ayn Rand,
The
Fountainhead
My fingers are mated into a mirrored series of what manifests, to me, as the letter X.
—David Foster Wallace,
Infinite Jest: A Novel
32.
n.
A cross-stitch of thread.
My grandmother collected x’s in her lap, / canceling the empty muslin with thread and needle, / one stitch by one stitch, until a flower bloomed.
—Rebecca McClanahan, “X”
33.
adj.
Annoyed, angry, irritated, cross
(a pun on x’s cross shape).
34.
v.
In the game of chess, captures.
35.
v.
To obliterate.
36.
n.
A sign representing “the merging of the physical and spiritual,”
according to Herman R. Bangerter, “Significance of Ancient, Geometric Symbols.”
37.
n.
A hobo sign.
The plain “X” meant handout available at nearest house.
—Edward Abbey,
The Fool’s Progress
38.
n.
X legs:
legs bending inward at the middle.
Mary and Joseph were poorly painted blobs, the manger was a veed cradle on spindly X legs, the shed’s slanted roof was grooved to look like wood.
—Susan S. Kelly,
Even Now
39.
n.
X stretcher:
an X-shaped support usually used to hold four parallel beams at a fixed distance, as the legs of a coffee table.
DR./MR./MRS./MS. X
40.
n.
A person or thing of unknown identity.
Psychologists and police profilers often tell us that fame is a driving rationale for people to commit heinous crimes. Murderers and rapists can publish
firsthand-account books from prison. I would recommend that all people convicted of serious crimes simply be referred to as Mr. or Mrs. X by the media.
Real names would be secured within court documents and available for legal means. But to the rest of the world, the fame would dissipate. What punishment or deterrent could be better than erasure of one’s name?
—Aslan,
“No Notoriety for the Notorious,” Halfbakery.com
41.
n.
An insignificant person.
Only in historical retrospect do we see that sometimes suddenly a certain insignificant Mr. X, without knowing it himself, had the whole situation in his hands.
—Marie-Louise von Franz,
Archetypal
Dimensions of the Psyche
I am Mr. X or Ms. X, I live in X street, like thousands of others, and it really wouldn’t make much difference if a few people like me got killed—there’s more than enough of us anyway!
—Marie-Louise von Franz,
Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche
42.
n.
The thirteenth generation to be born since the
American Constitution.
Then there’s “Generation X,” the tag that was affixed to my age bracket by Douglas Coupland in his 1991 novel
Generation X: Takes for an Accelerated Culture.
Thanks, but no thanks, Doug. Sounds too much like “Brand X.” There is a blankness, a lack of identity, even a sense of negation in that big letter X that is disturbing to our self-image.
—Kevin Graham Ford,
Jesus for a New Generation:
Putting the Gospel in the Language of Xers