Re: Buffy & Angel Heads, what does Faith mean when she says 5x5?
The meaning of "five by five"
The "Five by Five" comes from military radio operators who used the phrase to tell the person they were talking to how well they were coming in. There was a five point scale in two categories, strength of signal and clarity of transmission. A strong, clear signal was coming in "Five by Five", lesser signals would be judged with lesser numbers. Radio operators and other servicemen picked up the phrase to represent generally good circumstances. So when Faith says everything is "Five by Five", things must be, by her standards at least, going great.
This phrase is also used in the movie Aliens and the lot's of videogames.
Re: Buffy & Angel Heads, what does Faith mean when she says 5x5?
My dad's a ham radio operator (second-generation geek, here!) and I heard 5x5 a LOT as a kid. The first number quantifies signal strength, the second signal clarity, on a 1-5 scale, with 5 being the best. Thus, 5x5 = "I understand you perfectly" or, in Faith-slang, "It's all good."
Hearing Faith say 5x5 made me grin! I also got nostalgic fuzzies from the computer-generated voice counter on the repeater when they picked up Danielle's signal. My dad played with his radios in the basement at night, and I would often hear him through the vents, along with Radio Mexico, or whatever he happened to catch that night. "1...6...2...4...9... repeater." I pretended he was a spy intercepting coded messages and saving agents and stuff. Wow, that was a ramble! My geekiness shows itself often at inopportune moments!
