the neon letter. we have twenty six letters in our alphabet (if you didn't know that then this post may not be entirely relatable). certain letters are really popular and useful. r, s, t, m, n, the entire vowel collection. but recently one letter has been more popular than it really ought to be. yes, you know what i'm talking about. the dreaded "x." i'll cap that to make it seem more ubiquitous. the dreaded "X."



xtra, xceptional, xciting, xtinction, xtension, xterminate, xtrapolate, xonerate, xcel, xam, xecutive, xpress, xcept, xcess, xstatic, xtreme, xcetra. it all started with this whole generation x thing. ascribing one letter to an entire generation of humans is wrong. wait no. it probably started with the whole xmas thing. christmas was suddenly dubbed, xmas. thus killing all meaning for the holiday. no wait, it was the grinch and the gift giving and the crass commercialization that killed the holiday. my bad. additionally, it occurs to me that the x could hypothetically be substituted for "christ" in all situations. in fact, i'm surprised christians haven't picked up on this ultra-cool spelling convention yet. "we are not christians, we are xtians. praise be, jesus x died on the sideways x for your sins." but this is not a religion blog. it is an alphabet blog.



the x is now used to connote crazy or sexy or cool. triple x. we knew what that movie was gonna be about. xtreme, xciting, xsex. the x games were xtreme, xciting, xdaring. the x has just been straight overplayed. it is, how you might say, overly xposed. i won't even talk about the xfl. when you see moving vans and laundromats flaunting "xtreme" in their names you know you've scraped the absolute bottom of the barrel. there is nothing extreme about moving vans and laundromats. i know that part of the problem is that an x is easily inserted into other words. and there is something about the sound of an x that is kind of appealing. a hardcore kind of sound. i won't bother duplicating it here, if you don't know then maybe check out hooked on phonics. cliff notes lites version. there is also something titillating about an x rated item. so i get why x is cool, but i just don't want to perpetuate it.



instead i've decided to throw myself behind another letter's corner. the most underrated letter, as decided quickly via an informal poll of one, is the letter v. voluptuous, versus, villain, vixen, victim, viscous, verbose, viggo, voila, virtuoso, vocative, vick, very, victory, vavoom, verve, veer, vault, velocity, volume, venezuela. all great and under represented words. the minority letter if you will. diversity is the key to our existence. without it we might be forced to interbreed with our closely related letters. and that would cause random unwanted mutations. how else to explain the strange additional appendages attached to the n and the o? the m and the q are not naturally occuring letters people. also the w is a genetic mutate of our slept on v. actually, half our alphabet is composed of bits and pieces from other letters. the b, the p, the d, the i, the d, the d, the y, the d, the i, the d....its diddy. i'm a stop singing now. anyhow, stop the x, utilize the v. it also doubles as a peace or a fob sign. or it can be used ambiguously like vava va victor shows here. so versatile that vivacious v. ah yes, versatile, another xcellent v word.



oh but dance 2xs, they're cool. and not just because they've reduced excess from six letters to two. actually what they've really done is go from nine letters to three but who's really counting here besides me. lex luthor, he's an okay x thing too. if i really had any principals i would boycott xtreme xmen just because it's such a terrible name (not the xmen part, just the xtreme bothers me). but the mind is weak. actually, the body is weak too. which half is weaker is entirely a matter of personal opinion.



i almost overlooked the newest x fad to hit the scene in recent years. xtacy. although that's more of an e word. but i quibble.