You can pronounce it the “ten” if you want, but be prepared for people to assume that you are a virgin that lives in your “mom’s” basement.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone X Are we pronouncing this "Ten S"?
- Thread starter lupend88
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I’ll be calling it the ‘excess’ in tribute to the excessive prices Apple charges for iPhones these days.
I think it will be ‘Xs’, at least for one or two of the newest models. I don’t care what Apple titles the newest iPhones, I’m purchasing it for the experience, not the name.
I still refer to the iPhone X as iPhone “ex” because my brain automatically sees the X as the letter, I don’t think about the Roman numeral at all so 10 doesn’t even enter my mind. I’m like that with everything involving Roman numerals though like Star Wars for example.
So yeah, it’s “ex-ess” to me. It’s not as if “XS” is a Roman numeral anyway, you can’t have one numeral and one letter because then they just become two letters. Then there’s the issue of seeing it as extra small like with clothing... I don’t think Apple thought this one through very well at all. I’m not sure what else you could call it though really but they are paid to come up with this stuff without it sounding weird.
I think I put a little too much thought into that as it’s just a bloody name and doesn’t matter at the end of the day really.
[doublepost=1535799360][/doublepost]
I was the same way with Mac OS X. I knew the correct way to say it was 10 but I still referred to it as OS Ex. I see it as the letter because it’s a singular massive X there, not a number. I don’t think of the Roman numeral at all and looks like many others don’t either.
[doublepost=1535799844][/doublepost]
Sounding real pretentious there. I’m a “techie” and I refer to as iPhone EX. It has nothing to do with being tech illiterate at all. It’s a mental thing, most people see a massive X there without even thinking about a Roman numeral so they will call it that.
So yeah, it’s “ex-ess” to me. It’s not as if “XS” is a Roman numeral anyway, you can’t have one numeral and one letter because then they just become two letters. Then there’s the issue of seeing it as extra small like with clothing... I don’t think Apple thought this one through very well at all. I’m not sure what else you could call it though really but they are paid to come up with this stuff without it sounding weird.
I think I put a little too much thought into that as it’s just a bloody name and doesn’t matter at the end of the day really.
[doublepost=1535799360][/doublepost]
I was the same way with Mac OS X. I knew the correct way to say it was 10 but I still referred to it as OS Ex. I see it as the letter because it’s a singular massive X there, not a number. I don’t think of the Roman numeral at all and looks like many others don’t either.
[doublepost=1535799844][/doublepost]
Sounding real pretentious there. I’m a “techie” and I refer to as iPhone EX. It has nothing to do with being tech illiterate at all. It’s a mental thing, most people see a massive X there without even thinking about a Roman numeral so they will call it that.
Last edited:
Only on Macrumors can you find thread after thread and post upon post of what the name of a freakin phone is. It’s just a name...
... and it’s NOT EVEN ON THE PHONE.
... and it’s NOT EVEN ON THE PHONE.
Irrelevant for 90 percent of people out there. They used to pronounce the OS X as OS ex instead of OS 10. Now, they are pronouncing the iPhone name same. They will pronounce the iPhone XS as ex-S and there is nothing we can do.
It will be confusing. I mean, people manage to be confused by pronouncing X as 10 right now, imagine Xs.
People aren't "confused". They just don't use Roman numerals in their everyday life so when they see an "X" it is the letter X and not the number 10 to them.
I read iPhone X as “iPhone Ex” almost every time, because Roman numerals aren’t a big part of my life.
I say “iPhone 10” because I know that’s the name.
The Super Bowl has 40-odd years of Roman numerals, so comparing it to throwing an X on the end of a phone name doesn’t exactly have the same background. Tacking on an alphabetic character certainly doesn’t help distinguish the X as a numeric character and certainly does distinguish it from then purely numerical Super Bowl example.
Edit: And Xs can very legitimately be read as “tens” because there’s plenty of authority for writing the plural of X in that way.
Last edited:
