• gnutrino@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    3 months ago

    Xenon? Xylem? Xenobiology? Xanthoma? Xylocarp? Xiphoid? Xerosis? Xyster? The scrabble favorites xi and xu?

    There’s loads of cool words that begin with x

    • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      Xylophone: fun, colorful, easy for a kid to remember as a cute little instrument

      Xenon: An inert gas used in… MRI scans, I think?

      X-ray is probably the only other ‘X’ word with more real-world representation than xylophone, and as pointed out above, that’s not quite representative of how the letter is used phonetically in the rest of the language.

      • gnutrino@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Xylem is a major component of almost all the plants you see. I’m not sure how much more real-world representation you can get…

        • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          By “real-world representation”, I mean “how often the word is actually used in the real world.” There are hundreds of trillions of neutrinos passing through you all the time, but I’d still think “nest” is a better word for kids.