Faith often uses the phrase “Five by Five” to say she’s ok. The origin of the phrase is unknown, but it can be related to a poker term, a piece of wood, US Army talk for a radio signal being loud and clear, and it’s also a reference to the movie Aliens. Five by five was used in the space program in the 1960’s, used by Apollo astronauts. In the transcription of the air-to-ground Apollo 11 mission are the words: “Roger, 11, You are coming in five-by-five here. Beautiful signal.”
1.18 Five By Five became the name of a Faith-centered episode in Angel’s season one.
Related episodes: 1.18 Five By Five, 4.15 This Year's Girl
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cardboardy on January 19th, 2006 at 10:29 am
One of the original meanings of ‘five by five’, in the 1930s, was ’short and fat’. As in five feet high by five feet wide.
The other original meaning was the military/ radio loud and clear, with each ‘five’ representing reception strength and reception clarity.
Then in the 1980s something inexplicable happened, and words lost their need for meaning, and five by five came to mean ‘its all good’.
source
somethingblue on January 20th, 2006 at 1:36 am
Oh my gosh, thank you to Jess and cardboardy, esp. cardboardy, for clearing that up! I have been looking for the meaning for 5 x 5 since I started watching Buffy last year. I wonder where Joss (if it was Joss) picked that up or if Eliza Dishku (Faith) already said that on her own. Joss said in the commentary that in season 7 when Faith is talking to Wood in Chosen, and she says “I’ve got mad skills”, he took that directly from her as she was telling him about her cooking abilities.
Insane_Flamingo on February 13th, 2006 at 3:19 am
I think that when Faith says she’s “Five by five,” it means five out of five. Or 5/5, rather than 5 x 5. At the fullest, she’s good.
For example, lots of games use fractions to show “life.” Five by five would be unharmed. Four by five would be slightly harmed, and so on.
onlimain on February 13th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
I got another, possible, meaning from a fanfic. In the story, in response to Faith’s standard answer, Fred says something like, “Oh, 5×5; perfectly square.”
Fenchurch on July 9th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Five by five means short and fat? Is that how Faith pictures herself?
ildjarn on September 15th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
See this link.
In Voice procedure (the techniques used to facilitate spoken communication over two-way radios) a station may request a report on the quality and strength of signal they are broadcasting. In the military of the NATO countries, and other organizations, the signal quality is reported on two scales; the first is for signal strength, and the second for signal clarity. Both these scales range from one to five, where one is the worst and five is the best. The listening station reports these numbers separated with the word ‘by’. Five by five therefore means a signal which has excellent strength and perfect clarity - the most understandable signal possible.
Five by five by extension has come to mean ‘I understand you perfectly’ in situations other than radio communication, the way Loud and Clear entered slang, post-WW2.