Re: QX

On Mon, 20 Jan 2003 07:25:33 -0500 Aaron Teske 
<mithramuse@njaccess.com> wrote:

>> Never before thought of Q and X being similar to O and K before, 
that's quite clever... <<

> Yeah, I missed that, though what with typing and all I tend to type 
in "okay" rather than OK just because I don't want to hit the shift 
key. <grin>  So I, too, missed the shift... <

Me, too -- typing "okay", that is. However, I have read of certain 
publishers who insist on using the "OK" form, and it's quite common 
usage in the great wide world -- for instance, there's an ad for 
something (shows you how good the ad is as an _ad_ that I can't 
remember what it's for, only the repeated imagery) showing a factory 
monotonously turning out "OK's" until some dangerous radical manages to 
enter "What if?" into the system... at which point the whole complex 
blows up! Could it possibly be a Microsoft ad, in which case Irony 
reigns supreme?

> Phil is probably right on that one, though why they would move away 
from the easier "O" to a "Q" is a bit of a question.  But who can 
tell...? <

Don't ask me; linguistics is nothing if not unpredicable, and it could 
be something as simple as messy handwriting -- I can think of a way to 
scrawl OK that could be taken as QX -- or something far more complex...

...though personally, I favour the theory that the term is degenerate 
from advertising for the QXC home shopping channel...! <eg>

Phil
----
"I think... I think I am! Therefore I am... I think?"
				       -- The Moody Blues
I think _I_ am Phil Atcliffe (Phillip.Atcliffe@uwe.ac.uk)