debugging a toy

[cellio]

The detective work and presentation in the top answer to this question on English Language & Usage are quite impressive. What is that picture of a word beginning with "Y" supposed to be?

I haven't read all the comments, but it appears there's a lot of forensics to be found therein, too.

Comments

[conuly]

I'm sure it must be a Yak, because it's always the Y word. (Except in one alphabet puzzle I saw once as a ten year old where lifting the letter Y revealed that the associated word was... yacht. I've wondered about that ever since.) At any rate, Yaks, Yaxe, it's all so similar!

[cellio]

"Yak" is a good "Y" word, but the picture isn't an animal. But if somebody in a factory in China said "yaks", somebody else heard "yax" morphing to "ax" or "yxa" (the Swedish word), I can see how they would have ended up printing that on the ball, maybe.

I wouldn't have thought of "yacht". Maybe "yo-yo" (that came up in the linked post), or "yarn" (ball or skein of).