Thanks I took 8th grade geometry too, you just took this way too seriously lmao.
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Do you call the X button "X" or "Cross"?
- Thread starter Lant_War
- Start date
You have to Delta, X, Box, 360
Without a sarcasm marker, I'm right to take everything literally. ;)
I've heard some people call it "X", but yeah for most people it's "croix", I mean it's all "triangle carré croix rond", makes little sense to call it "X" as other buttons are obviously shapes and not letters.
That's exactly what I'm saying. It's nonsensical to say that "well X means the letter, even though that came later." Just as it would be nonsensical to say that an upright cross is religious iconography.
X has been used for all kinds of things, such as, ya know, a marker. X marks the spot, meaning it's the primary place where your attention should go. X is used to cross out things. Multiple Xs have various meanings. Many of these existed long before the letter X existed.
Yes, it is under the subsection of cross, but so are trucks under the subject of cars, and yet we say cars vs trucks all the time in common parlance, so as to distinguish them -- this is a useful distinction because a car does not have a bed, and a truck does. Given X has a generic meaning, including outside of letters, and the other kind of cross, the upright cross doesn't really have a name (just as sedans, coupes, and minivans don't really have a collective name to distinguish them from trucks with beds), it makes sense to call the latter cross, and the former X. "Plus sign" is a bit unwieldy, and specifically refers to math so ehh.
Words have many meanings, and the tweet is silly by acting like everyone can only refer to one specific meaning of the symbol, that of a letter. X is not just a letter. It's the word we have for a diagonal cross. It's weird and awkward to call it a cross, since most people (as evidenced by the poll above) associate a cross with the upright variety.
Right. That..doesn't change what I'm saying at all. I specifically brought them up because they have the exact same properties, but are viewed at a different orientation.
We don't use "diamond" so much in math, but it is still a colloquial shape. It's useful in common speech.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize I indicated that I was uncomfortable.
Pssssst
It's actually both, though the pronunciation for giga that people love to cite as "wrong", with the soft g, is a actually part of the NIST standard, which is likely why it was used
About the upright cross + being called "plus", in maths, the slanted one × is explicitly called "cross", so the "common association" for mathematicians is opposite to the "common association" you brought forward.
All I mean is that what seems "common sense" to you might not really be in other circles. :p
Edit:
Another example of particular "common sense".
In english, how to pronounce the g in a word is completely arbitrary (giraffe, gift).
Other languages often have explicit rules of how to pronounce a sequence of letters (instead of being arbitrary).
In a lot of those g+i/e lead to a soft g, while g+a/u/o lead to a hard g. So "gif" with soft "j"-like pronunciation becomes the more natural one.
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I mean, yeah, Americans standardized the "j" pronunciation for the giga- prefix for some reason, but I'm not American and most of the world doesn't look to America for advice on how to metric sooooooo 😉
I don't think anyone really says jigahertz or jigabyte. Jigawatt only seems to hang on at all due to BTTF
I don't think anyone really says jigahertz or jigabyte. Jigawatt only seems to hang on at all due to BTTF
Well sure, but mathematicians also have lots of definitions and words that are wholely distinct from their place in the rest of the average colloquial world. I'm not gonna refer to the relationship between X and Triangle and talk about their size or distance or anything like that, and certainly not in terms in which their shapes are relevant in this way.
I always think of crosses being a vertical line from 90° to 270° with horizontal line intersecting it at 180° to 360°/0°. Shift those values by 45° (I think) and you'll have an 'X'. So I call it 'X' I think a more valuable conversation would be, do you call O circle or 'O'? Interested in seeing what people say then.
Anyone who says they call it cross is lying...Its a god damn X! X!!!!
I guess that means X-Box is pronounced Cross-Box. pfft
I guess that means X-Box is pronounced Cross-Box. pfft
I call circle O sometimes...
Kruzifix!
No, seriously, X is just convenient and short. X it is. There's a reason it's X shaped and not +. On the other hand... people probably would discuss if its CROSS or PLUS, then. nvm.
No, seriously, X is just convenient and short. X it is. There's a reason it's X shaped and not +. On the other hand... people probably would discuss if its CROSS or PLUS, then. nvm.
I've seen it referred to as cross in plenty of EU developed games.
