This blog post is not about the state of the website formerly known as Twitter. Nor is this website about the Universal Container of Sets and all probable possible propositions P. This blog post is about the 24th letter of the alphabet and about the daftness of the glyph that we use.
I have no idea of what kind of English that the people of the rainy islands to the northwest of Europe spoke before the arrival of the Roman Empire (men think about the Roman Empire several times a day apparently) but I do know that the runic system of letters that the Anglish English used was slowly abandoned for this new fangled Roman character set. Some letters were added and some went away as needed. We've lost some like Yogh, Eth, and Thorn, and we've picked up a J and W but X was one of the original gansta stylee Roman letters, yo.
The dumb thing about picking up the Roman letter set is that English ended up using X for the same purpose as the Romans did. Sure, X rox da box, like a fox with pox, but then we have to use unwieldy combinations of letters for other things when X would have done.
When we transliterate Chinese into English, X takes on a kind of "zh" sound. Chinese Premier Xi Jing Ping would sound quite different if his name was pronounced in English with the usual "cs" that X takes on. Likewise when we transliterate Spanish into English, X takes on a kind of "sh" sound but where the back of the tongue creates a tighter point at the roof of the mouth. Both "sh" and that "sh" in Spanish, are aspirant noises and can be made with no vocal chords whatsoever.
If I was Grand Poohbah and Lord High Everything Else then I would remove all instances of X as it currently stands and re-use it for a better purpose. If I am not putting X to use as the "cs" sound, then "what am I going to use it for?", I do not hear you ask because that's not how tecst works. Simple. I am going to make X take on the sound that it had in Greek, which is "ch".
In English "ch" is a plosive sound which has no right to be rendered with a 'c' or 'h'. However, by using X instead and suddenly X and that sound have a happy home together. "King Xarles the First" might look silly to us now, but all written systems are ultimately arbitrary anyway. To someone who grows up with X as "ch", then this would look normal. 'Xarles went to xirx' is a sensible looking thing. The train from "Rixmond to Xatswood" would still run on time.
Remember, the King of Korea got mad with the daft preponderance of Chinese characters and locked all of the academics in a palace until they invented the Hangul (Korean alphabet); then on 9th October 1446 it was published and released into the kosmos and suddenly Korea had an excellent writing system which everyone eventually learned. Likewise, President Mustafa Atatürk in an effort to modernise Türkiye, made Türkiye change from an Arabic script to a Latin script. The point is that people can and have got used to changes in writing systems and pretty quickly.
As for taking a tacsi home, or grabbing a bindle and riding the rails in a bocscar, if this sounds garish, obnoxious and daft, then remember that there is no X in the Welsh language and they cope perfectly well. That black cab that charges a fare? That's called a Tacsi. Suddenly "Ecks rocks da bocks, like a focks with pocks" looks daft but intuitively correct.
Also as Grand Poohbah and Lord High Everything Else, I would put an end to "ph" in place of "F". Again if we turn to Welsh, then "Teleffon" looks strange to an English speaking audience but it still looks intuitively correct.
Of course as I am writing this, I am very much aware of my nemesis in grammar, Noah Webster. Webster who is famous for his "Blue Backed Speller" which would ultimately lead to the Merriman-Webster Dictionary, deliberately changed the spelling of American English because he saw existing words and spellings as arbitrary and bad. Is what I proposing to do any different at all? Absolutely not. I will readily admit that I stand upon Mount Hypocrisy and cry "Havoc! Let slip the dogs of war!" into a kosmos that doesn't care. Webster thought that the 'u' in words like 'colour' and 'flavour' was unnecessary and he was also liberal with chucking about 'z's and also preferred the 'ize' ending. However, not once did he correct the X problem or the 'ph' problem.
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