Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

UPFRONT:SOMETIMES I WISH people I didn’t know would stop kissing me. No, not in the flesh, for crying out loud. As if I’d be calling a halt to that! (Only messing, I haven’t forgotten I’m about to be wed, people.) I mean when they write to me. It’s all XX this and mwah mwah that: if these were real kisses, I’d have some serious questions to answer, not to mention glandular fever. As it is, I just feel a bit – not compromised, exactly – just slightly slavered on.

Admittedly it’s a two-way thing. I’ve embraced the X myself, perhaps too closely, if I’m to be honest. It’s just such good shorthand for signing off on the right kind of correspondence, and now that I seem to be writing e-mails and texts to my friends more often than actually talking to them, I had to find some sort of “love-you-must-dash” equivalent that took me a little less time and space to type. X to the rescue!