I posted a Christmas postcard from the early 1900's a few days ago and it said Happy xmas. I know every year we hear don't take Christ out of Christmas. I must say here I believe in Christ and I write Christmas, so I don't want anyone to get mad at me. I remembered a few years ago reading on the internet about the meaning of xmas. I couldn't find what I read a few years ago but this link does give us some history to xmas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas
In some cases yes, people are taking Christ out of Christmas in other cases I think people are lazy and don't want to write it out. But when we look at things from the early 1900's and read about xmas being used for a thousand years maybe we should realize past generations knew more than we do.
Xmas" is a common abbreviation of the word "Christmas". It is sometimes pronounced /ˈɛksməs/, but it, and variants such as "Xtemass", originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation, /ˈkrɪsməs/. The "-mas" part is from the Latin-derived Old English word for "mass",[1] while the "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός, translated as "Christ". copied from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas
Just something to think about. I'm keeping Christ in Christmas but I can see where this originated.
2 comments:
Very true, Harriet.... I remember being told when I was younger not to write Christmas as Xmas... I was told that that was taking Christ out of Christmas. SO--I never did it again...
BUT--I do know that the 'X' can stand for Christ--and that the abbreviation or short-cut doesn't really mean that we are taking Christ out of Christmas....
These days, unfortunately in our country, there are many people who truly want to take Christ out of Christmas... That really upsets me.
Hugs,
Betsy
Harriet,
I've given you the Ancestor Approved Award.
You can pick it up at http://westinnewengland.blogspot.com/2010/12/ancestor-approved-award.html
Post a Comment