ticks and crosses?

[El D]

what is the origin of the tick and cross?

 

Im guessing a tick is a corruption of V for veritas? or am I way off. but a bit stumped on the X.

[Quizmonster]

'Tick' in this kind of sense, meant a light touch or stroke as far back as the 1400s. Only in the middle of the 19th century did it take on its present meaning of an acute-angled mark on paper, though the 'stroke' idea is still there. Then, it was just a way of making a mark on a piece of writing for later reference and not as a sign of correctness. It appears to have nothing to do with 'veritas'.

A cross, on the other hand, was first referred to as a signifier of an error as long ago as the 16th century.

[Octavius]

I think that they take their roots from the ancient Greeks.  X - Chi and Y - Upsilon.

How they got to their present meaning I am not entirely sure, but even the romans used to paint crosses (X's) on the doors of condemned people so that the praetorian cohort could find them.

[Quizmonster]

The earliest use of a cross to signify an error in writing - which is what this question is about, presumably - was as I outlined in my earlier answer. The point is that back in the 16th century it was an upright cross that was used, a plus-sign cross (+) and not a letter-sign cross (x). In other words, it obviously had nothing to do with the letter 'X'. The fact that it has subsequently taken on the letter-format is coincidental and just one of those language-change 'things'.

Apart from that, in their etymology of the word 'cross' = mistake, the scholars of 'TOED' have nothing to say about Greek letters. In addition, in their analysis of the letter 'X' itself, they make no reference to its use as an error-marker.

Sorry, O, but the Greek letter suggestion just doesn't seem to wash.