S

O the other day I had an argument with a teenager. To many adults, that might sound like “the other day the earth went around the sun” but since I don’t have one of my own I’m not overly familiar with the daily habits of the doubting adolescent.

I am told by friends who are parents that the life cycle of the human being involves a terrifying metamorphosis from the child, who unquestioningly accepts anything that comes out of the mouths of elders, to the pre-adult who will have none of it, even if it’s true. This exchange seemed to prove it.

The argument in question centred on (not “centred around”, which was a disagreement we had on a separate occasion) the spelling of Rubik’s Cube. My teenaged friend insisted that it was “The Rubix Cube” and deftly scrolled through a dozen websites to back up her claim.

Ever the pedant, I directed her to biographies of Ernö Rubik, the Hungarian professor of architecture who invented the damnable toy. It was his cube, therefore Rubik’s would appear to be the appropriate spelling.

She was not immediately convinced, but when it comes to stubbornness only a full-fledged pedant can outlast an adolescent. Eventually she admitted that I might possibly be correct, but that it didn’t really matter because “ix” has become an accepted alternative spelling for words that used to end in “ics” — or, in this case, “ik’s” — and that this is a good thing, particularly when it removes the need for an apostrophe.

I could have continued to argue, but it was lunchtime. Also, a faint demonic voice was whispering in my subconscious. Like humans, words do not remain children forever. They grow and mutate and learn to drive and debate and before you know it they are no longer recognisable as the sweet, pliant creatures they once were.

The letter “x” marks more spots every day. Rubix, which is all over the internet, is just one example. There are car-repair services called Mechanix, sellers of curtains and linens called Fabrix and manufacturers of digitally controlled prosthetic limbs called Robotix.

I blame the French for this. One Frenchman in particular. His name was René Goscinny and along with illustrator Albert Uderzo he gave birth to characters called Asterix, youth I used to frequent a comedy bar called Hysterix (inspired by Asterix and his cohorts and decorated with bad paintings of them) and ever since then I have had trouble writing “hysterics”.

There are modern-day remakes of almost everything — even Enid Blyton’s ginger-beer-swilling Famous Five have been resurrected in new adventures involving teambuilding, gluten-free diets and giving up alcohol — so why not a new Asterix for the digital age that helps us overcome our fear of “ix”?

This village, which no longer holds out against the inevitable future, will have a new cast of characters, including Antibiotix the doctor, Forensix the pathologist, Hallucinogenix the chemist, Alcoholix the writer, Cosmetix the beauty therapist, Eccentrix the weirdo, Economix the banker and Heretix the unbeliever.

Rubix, of course, would be the old square. But even he might occasionally listen to the wisdom of teenagers. LS