Why Do X’s Represent Kisses?

Why Do X’s Represent Kisses?

Before the time of the e-mail and the internet, people were actually writing letters to each other. And before emoticons came to life, Xs and Os were used to sign off letters with hugs and kisses. Many people practiced it and yet not many of them knew where it all began.

Letters up to this day is the main form of communication between two people far apart from each other. The methods may have changed but the mechanics remain the same; communication is written to be read by the person at the other end.

Since written words hardly convey the emotion of the sender, it became a practice to write the actions that he or she wants to send. It became a standard practice to say ‘hug and kiss the kids for me, or ‘give mother the best hug from me,. Later on, it became too long to write and so they resorted to symbols such as the heart shape for love and then the Xs for a kiss and Os for a hug.

The heart shape which represents love is self explanatory. But the Xs and Os that symbolizes kisses and hugs are often subjects of debates. One explanation that tells of a historic basis for using the X as a symbol for kiss is that it began in the Christian times of 1901 when people used X to symbolize the cross which people kissed to prove sincerity. This was used in letters to signify their importance and that the sender vowed to the truth of its contents.

But modern interpretations say that the X is actually the two symbols used for male and female meeting each other essentially making a kiss. However this is interpreted, only one thing is for sure, the Xs and Os will continue to flourish albeit now in the form of animated icons.