Another gray day

[conuly]

Poll #23368

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 121

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Without looking it up or asking anybody, if I signed a letter with "xoxo", which letter means hugs?

View Answers

X
23 (19.0%)

O
98 (81.0%)

*******

Whenever I see stuff like this I wonder how people even come up with it.

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Comments

[redbird]

I see a lot of us are now getting the OED word of the day feed.

[conuly]

Yay!

[pauamma]

I didn't know one of those was supposed to mean "hugs". I only knew that together they were supposed to demonstrate affection.

[conuly]

They're hugs and kisses.

[kareina]

Since it stands for hugs and kisses, and the X is drawn first, the X has to be hugs. Besides, arms crossing around the other person. Therefore the roundness of the O would be the symbol for the kiss.

[chomiji]

I always assumed that "o" was hugs" because xxx by itself is a thing, and people tend to say "with love" and "with love and kisses" far more than they say with "hugs and kisses." In fact the xxx in a signature to a letter was definitely a thing with my mother and other relatives, and with them, the word "hug" was almost exclusively a near-babytalk thing. Obviously people hugged, but the grown-up word seemed to be "embrace." And Mom *told* me that xxx = kisses.

[thewayne]

I saw that word of the day, and I've always thought - and will continue to think - that X is hug and O is kiss.

[spikethemuffin]

I wondered briefly if it's a USAian vs. British thing, but the article below cites the OED as saying "x" is "kiss."

https://mashable.com/2015/02/11/kiss-symbol-x/

[thewayne]

Now THAT is a possibility, and I hadn't considered that.  There is sort of a sibilant resonance between X and kiss when you say them out loud