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Interesting, but the connection to symbols from Japan seems a bit dubious (or at least not very recent). The term "cross out", and hence the use of an "x" to in
by sbw1 12y ago
Interesting, but the connection to symbols from Japan seems a bit dubious (or at least not very recent). The term "cross out", and hence the use of an "x" to indicate negating something, seems to have been in common use in English since at least the 1920s:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cross+out https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cross+out
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- nardi 12y agoI was going to say the same. Surely people have been crossing things out in writing and art for a very long time. Edit: According to etymonline.com, crossing things out dates to at lease mid 15th century: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=Cross http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=Cross
- gnarbarian 12y agoA few counterpoints. "X marks the spot" Checking a box to indictate your selection on a form or ballot. I can't think of any more off the top of my head.
- pjlegato 12y agoCheckmarks (positive, accepted item) are quite often opposed to X marks (negative, undesired item).
- chippy 12y agoWhere you put a tick, you can put a cross?
- renlo 12y agoAlso, it could have come from 'exit'. I've seen some text based programs use an 'x' key-press to activate a program 'exit', although I'm not sure of the chronology of its use.
- mattlondon 12y agoThis. Everyone remembers being told at school from a very early age to "cross out" things you dont want any more (such as writing the wrong word/spelling, getting the sum wrong etc). At least in western cultures anyway, this seems fairly universal. Seems to me to be a very easy semantic jump to go from "disregard this mistake" on paper to "disregard this thing I am looking at" on computer screens.
- ape4 12y agoYeah, I could not imagine a Japanese symbol like 近く which according to Google Translate means "close" taking over.