A guy named David emailed me today with a question. “How do you pronounce ‘Skyzyx’?”
The thought had never occurred to me before. I guess it should have. It’s not a name or a word of any sort, it’s just a name of my own creation. I came up with it back in 1992. I was in eighth grade, and I decided to create a word out of all of the “cool” looking letters of the alphabet. After a few tries, “Skyzyx” was the polished word.
For the record, Skyzyx is pronounced “Sky”, as in the sky above, and “Zicks”, just like “Ticks”, but with a Z (Z has always been a cool letter. Do you think that Jeffrey Zeldman would be as cool if he didn’t have a Z in his name?).
I guess the next logical question would be “What does it mean?” I still haven’t gotten around to that yet. Maybe “creator of words that are difficult to pronounce.” I dunno.
I started using it as a “pen name” of sorts when I would write short stories. It was also my callsign in the “club” I was in with my other eighth grade friends. After a while it just stuck. I would use it as my handle on BBS’s and IRC. In 1998, I launched “Skyzyx’s Lair” from my GeoCities web account… loaded with cutting edge frames, and magical table-based layouts.
Now, I use Skyzyx as my handle on forum boards and for my up-and-coming freelance business, Skyzyx Technologies. We’ll see where I’m able to go from there…
