Risk is commonly placed on the x-axis, and return is placed on the y-axis.

FORBES: The Efficient Frontier

On the x-axis is the rate of unemployment, on the y the rate of inflation.

FORBES: Magazine Article

The key, I concluded, is to plot the different kinds of consequences of work (y-axis) against the different types of groups (x-axis) that do the work.

FORBES: The Fundamental 2x2 of Capitalism

The above chart looks at how many papers were published in the information technology area (on the X-axis) and how likely those papers were to be cited by other scientific papers.

FORBES: The Most Innovative Countries In Information Technology

The chart on the right takes data from the US Energy Information Agency and plots total US inventories of crude plus all other categories of liquid hydrocarbons, and shows the change between the week ending on the x-axis date, and the inventories for the like week of 2010.

FORBES: Falling Oil Prices Make No Sense

The knobs are connected to a pulley system, which moves a brass stylus along an X-Y axis.

FORBES: How Does An Etch A Sketch Work, Anyway?

Analog joystick with central push-button two axis (X and Y) and a center pushbutton.

ENGADGET: Arduino Esplora helps you learn microcontrollers without the pesky breadboard