I would bet that the Chinese manufacturer that cloned the design never had one of the original balls in their possession in the first place. They probably saw photos of the ball online, copied the design as closely as possible and googled some clipart to fill in the letters that weren't visible in the photos. That clipart was Swedish, maybe by coincidence but probably intentionally.
Apparently this was discussed here while the investigation was ongoing, and an HN user (thedrake) was responsible for finding the ball on alibaba:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14672359">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14672359</a>
> I think the manufacturer of your son's ball mixed in a Swedish word<p>I found this super unconvincing at first. But they just kept goin. And going. And going. And the more I scrolled and the more I read, I started to think that they are right. And by the end I was fully convinced!<p>Well worth reading.<p>Thanks for sharing, OP!
First comment on the answer:<p>> This is quite the most extraordinary stack exchange answer that I've ever seen.<p>And I couldn't agree more. Well worth perusing if you (like me) usually only check the comments on HN.
Wasn't yew wood used for wooden handles in the past? It kind of looks like a yew-handled axe. Surprised that nobody mentioned that option.<p>Fun fact: Ötzi the iceman had a staff and axe made of yew -- <a href="https://www.iceman.it/en/equipment/" rel="nofollow">https://www.iceman.it/en/equipment/</a>
Y for yellow, given that's the color of the handle and that you need something to be representative of the color. Even having a yellow square could confuse it with S for square, or having a banana can confuse it with B for banana. Similar problems exist with S for Sun, C for (a yellow) crayon etc.<p>Also the handle is what has been drawn superimposed over the letter.<p>Still, confusion with A for axe isnt any better than S for sun or whatever. Maybe the reasoning was that axe was semantically far enough away from being one of the usual standard bearers of the color yellow, that children would associate the letter with the color rather than the object?
Anybody who has bought children’s toys on Amazon before would immediately think, “oh, it’s because it’s a knockoff made in China, this is not worth further investigation”. And they would be right.
The widespread manufacture of low price goods in China had been at full steam for over a decade, closer to two, by 2005 the date of first manufacture of the ball.<p>And the manufacturer couldn't find the original designers' details. And laid no claim to copyright (which seems strange).<p>Perhaps it was the case of a knockoff of a knockoff of a knockoff. A CAD file from the 1990s bumping around commodity manufactures via QQ and USB sticks, the design adapted the next order of 10,000 items by any one of a multitude of small commodities producers. Having sourced during that time to now, I'd fully believe it.
Wow, that Dan Bron sure put in some legwork. Impressive level of investigation. Same goes for many of the other commenters. It’s pretty impressive when people ban together to use their collective talents and minds this way. Are there any groups/subreddits or other places online where people get together to do this kind of stuff?
This reminds me of a wood board alphabet puzzle that was gifted to my kid which was made to both work in English and French. Every letter from B to Z were easy to guess. However the letter A was the drawing of a little girl playing in a puddle...<p>We figured out it might stand for Anorak: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parka" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parka</a>
After reading that lengthy, well-researched answer, I felt a bit deflated when I saw another answer lower down, that seems pretty plausible given that the ball in question a knock-off created by a Chinese company:<p>> <i>鉞 is yuè in pinyin, a romanization of Chinese. This translates to ax.</i>[0]<p>We'll probably never know if the origin is yxa or 鉞... or even something entirely different, sadly.<p>[0] <a href="https://english.stackexchange.com/a/395521" rel="nofollow">https://english.stackexchange.com/a/395521</a>
Friends, please, click on the link. There's a long and interesting investigation that answers the question, which is presumably why this was posted.
My personal theory is double translation of sorts. The item in question could be a 'hatchet.' Many romance languages use 'j' for the 'h' sound in English. Somebody somewhere was looking at 'jatchet.' Next, someone assumed that the j was pronounced 'y' as in a Germanic language (and also Semitic?). Thus, they ended up with 'yatchet.'<p>Of course, 'y' is right next to 'h' on a qwerty keyboard, so it could just be a typo if they're going for hatchet.
I saw the "Yxa" note, but couldn't it be for "Yew" which is a tough wood used to make axe handles? It also fits the curved handle picture in this article - <a href="https://www.woodworkingtrade.com/best-wood-for-axe-handles/" rel="nofollow">https://www.woodworkingtrade.com/best-wood-for-axe-handles/</a>
It’s questions like these that made StackExchange worth visiting and browsing. When they decided to be super strict about being on topic it made the quality of the sites go downhill a lot. Now there is much less reason for experts to hang out on the sites and while there provide answers to new questions.
This submission reminds me of this one:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37359193">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37359193</a><p><i>The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge</i> (1028 points | 4 months ago | 270 comments)<p>Investigating thoroughly about something that doesn't fucking matter.
> The close votes are misguided. The question is about English. That the most likely answer is a Swedish word does not change the fact that the question is about English.<p>FFS. Wherever people can put their own words on someone else's website, you'll find this guy.
> Comments are not for extended discussion<p>Sums up stack overflow moderation. At least in the future any time anyone has any tangential questions about children’s toys, axes, or the letter y, they can point to this and mark it as duplicate.
It's not a really really badly drawn ax with a weird wavy yellow handle, it's yellow paint coming out of a paint pot. The reason the "ax" looks nothing at all like an ax is that it isn't supposed to be an ax.
There is a well-known Russian meme called "китайские кубики"
<a href="https://trinixy.ru/18802-kitajjskie_kubiki_polnaja_versija_72_kubika.html" rel="nofollow">https://trinixy.ru/18802-kitajjskie_kubiki_polnaja_versija_7...</a><p>That set of toy cubes had everything: letter not matching a word, image not matching a word (like an orc from Lineage 2 for "щука"), made up words like "knifefork" and of course lots of typos.
My kids had an alphabet/animal book where each page had an an [Adjective] [Animal] pattern: "Breakdancing Bear," "Rollerskating Rabbit."<p>"X" was a problem. They ended up saying "Fox in sox."
This is most likely the correct answer: <a href="https://english.stackexchange.com/a/396624" rel="nofollow">https://english.stackexchange.com/a/396624</a>
I saw "YOLK", as in, a weirdly drawn cracked egg with the yolk pouring out downward and to the left.<p>Of course, after reading through I'm convinced enough of the mainstream conclusion.
Oh yeah, that answer is incredible. Makes me think of the "Obama Harry Potter Sonic Backpack". Don't worry thought, it can't hurt you in your nightmares.
Looking at it, I suspect it is actually just a mediocre illustration of <i>yellow</i> paint being squeezed out of a tube as one of the contents suggests.
A wonderful example of the human propensity to "hallucinate" meaning starting from a random connection (there's an undoin uncommon specific word for that - also noticeable in children and psych).<p>There is a smoking gun in one of the later comments: <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bDRX5m.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.stack.imgur.com/bDRX5m.jpg</a>
Most of the images are hard to figure out. For example, if the picture of the cat was not next to a C, I would have thought it to be a monkey. I would have assumed the dog to be actually a pet cow. The blade of the so called axe does look like a beaker or an old fashioned fountain pen ink bottle pouring out yellow ink or paint.
I came up with 'Yaks', plural of a type of beast of burden/farm animal. Probably not the solution, but I didn't see the solution on the post, just a Swedish word suggested. What was the solution decided on?<p>Ok, I conflated 'looks like' with 'sounds like'. Still curious about the solution though.
Why do I remember something like this resulting in the answer being “yeoman” as in a worker of land, also considered one who often chops wood?<p>The effort given in the top answer is extraordinary, and is probably the real reason for the submission, so perhaps trying to answer the actual question is off topic…
Why did no one guess "yurt" (with smoke coming out the chimney)?<p>Pictures of yurts here, first one with a chimney: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurt" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurt</a>
These theories are fun. My first instinct was that maybe it’s for “yeoman”. But that’s not the most kid-friendly or likely word to appear on a ball. “Yellow” seems a lot more plausible, and the spray paint can idea is especially clever.
The most upvoted answer gives the explanation the ball manufacturer is Swedish ('axe' in Swedish starts with a 'y'), but other answers say it was probably manufactured in a country where English wasn't the first language (e.g. China) and the 'y' for axe was simply a typo.<p>The evidence against the Swedish explanation is that the ball says c for 'cat' and d for 'dog', but in swedish the translations are 'katt' and 'hund' respectively.<p>This may be a case where the most upvoted answer is likely wrong, but because it was so entertaining and took so much effort, it was upvoted much more than the boring (but probably correct) answer.<p>EDIT: I had only skimmed the most upvoted answer, it does indeed trace the ball's manufacture to China and suggest the 'y for axe' is a typo. Apologies for the confusion.
Maybe begins with a "Y" but sounds like axe? How about a "Yak." Also, many of the letters I can see in the photos seem to be of animals.
Did the answer's author just misspelled his surname, which should be "Brown" instead of "Bron"? /s This was definitely a thriller-like read!
Took me about a minute to identify it is a yo-yo (without reading any of the discussions), and they point out there that the official ball has a yo-yo for Y, so I am quite convinced that it is supposed to be a yo-yo as well. Just not drawn particularly nicely: the yellow bit is a cartoon string, the blue-and-white bit is the yo-yo's "body".<p>Edit: although now that I finished reading the rest of the investigation, there are quite a few arguments for "yxa" as well. Still seems like an odd coincidence to see a yo-yo there myself, and then to read that it is supposed to be a yo-yo on the official ball.
Related:<p><i>Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24382164">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24382164</a> - Sept 2020 (2 comments)<p><i>Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture? (2017)</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22685058">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22685058</a> - March 2020 (4 comments)<p><i>“Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?”</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14670306">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14670306</a> - June 2017 (158 comments)
It's yellow paint being squeezed out of a tube.<p>The handle is the paint. The axe-head is the tube.<p>The number of people in the comments still speculating and believing in the aye theory is funny.<p>It's literally in the following answer on the StackExchange thread.<p>Or maybe I'm the one who feels the "swoosh" of the joke going over my head, and everyone pretends to see an axe for lulz.