I can understand the need to shorten commonly used terms in technical language, but how did they get x from trans?
e.g.
transmit –> xmit
transfer –> xfer
“Trans” in this sense indicates a relocation from one thing to another. My only guess is that x is a graphical interpretation of a path crossing from one side to another.
Any suggestions?
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You're right about the 'x' being a graphical representation. Commonly, 'x' is used to refer to 'cross' because of its shape of two lines crossing. You can often see this on street signs, where space is limited, so one might say something like 'deer x-ing,' meaning 'deer crossing.'
In many cases, 'cross-' and 'trans-' are interchangeable, at least semantically. For example, a transatlantic flight is one that crosses the Atlantic, and something that is transdermal crosses through the skin.
However, the cases you've presented are not as intuitive. '-mit' and '-fer' in the words 'transmit' and 'transfer,' respectively, are bound morphemes, meaning they have no concrete meaning when occurring on their own. Even when in a word, it's hard to give them meaning. How something can cross a 'mit' or a 'fer' makes no sense. On the other hand, it is easy to derive meaning from '-atlantic' and '-dermal.'
So, my guess is that replacing 'trans-' with 'x-' was simply extended from the intuitive cases to the arbitrary ones like 'transmit' and 'transfer.'
Actually, the "trans-" in transmit and transfer is completely analogous to "transatlantic". Crossing a "mit" or a "fer", makes perfect sense. -Mit is from the Latin, mittere, to send, and -fer are from the Latin to bear, or carry. While the word has broader usage, compared to "send", transmit often means to send across something or over a specific medium, and transfer can be literally to carry across from one to another.
oops. sorry, bad edit. that should be " …-fer is from the Latin ferre, to bear…"
This x is getting a little out of hand. When I first saw Xian used for Christian, I thought they were talking about the city in China. Xdress works, but not Xsexual. Well, not for me, anyway.
In reference to "x", I want to know how Christmas became Xmas. Unlike the graphical representation which would deem "x" to be read as "cross" or "trans", Christ in this case has been replaced by X.
I'm not sure about any of you, but "Xmas" doesn't sound like Christmas, even if you read it as "Crossmas"…
X is the first letter of Christ, in Greek. The earliest known versions of the new testament were written in Greek, and Christ in Greek was ΧριστÏŒς (Christos). The first letter is chi which, in upper case, looks pretty much exactly like an X. Chi, or the roman X, was used as an abbreviation for Christ since the 1500's. Well before that, Christ was (and still is) abbreviated as XP, Xt, IC, XC and IX, also from the Greek.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas
cf. xfer for cross-reference
The use of x in transmit could possibly be from radio and electronic engineering.
In the same way that X is used to stand for Christ in the abbreviation X-mas (Χ being the first letter of the Greek word ΧριστÏŒς (Christos), as porsche pointed out) so Xtal has been used as an abbreviation for crystal in circuit diagrams and circiut board layouts.
But also, cf. the use of Tx for transmit, transmitter or transmission and Rx for receive, receiver or reception…
just a guess here…
i always to things like x-mit to be a use of x from algebra. in algebra the x is so often used t represet something, anything.
thoughts on this?