10 X Words

Continuing our #500Words project, this week over on the HaggardHawks YouTube channel we’re looking at 10 X Words. As explained in the video, X isn’t actually the rarest letter of the alphabet overall, but it begins the fewest number of words of any letter—on average, you can expect only 0.02% of a standard dictionary to be listed under good old antepenultimate X. So why not give X a boost with the likes of xenomania, xylanthrax and X.Y.Z...

Thanks so much for all the great feedback about the videos that have already gone online in this series. It’s great to know they’re appreciated! One brief side note in answer to a couple of comments we’ve received over on Twitter, and on our Q Without U video—no, not all the words we’re talking about (and are going to talk about) are native to English. But they have all been borrowed into the language directly, and are now all found in English dictionaries. After all, if we limited ourselves to just “English” words, we’d be ignoring all but Anglo-Saxon… 

In case you hadn’t spotted it, there are source lists below each video, listed word by word, which it’s hoped can be used to provide a little more context and background if necessary—but of course, get in touch in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook if you’d like anything else clarifying!