Xmas vs. Christmas

[zoedragon]

Taken from the Q&A thread:

Originally Posted by SuperMegStar

Q: Why do some call Christmas, X-Mas?

I heard that in Greece (I think), they call Him Xristos. There you get an X.
Otherwise, I heard it was an atheist way of eliminating Christ from Christmas. ("crossing" him out of Christmas)

I figure this might turn into a debate, so I started its own thread so the QA thread would remain fun.

Anyway, I don't see why atheists would bother crossing Christ out of Christmas. It's a religious holiday so why would they bother celebrating it at all? I personally think it's just people being too darn lazy to spell it out when they scribble down notes.

[Admin]

Originally Posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas

Xmas is an abbreviation for Christmas. It is derived from the word ???????, transliterated as Christos, which is Greek for Christ. Greek is the language in which the whole New Testament was written.

Originally, Xmas was an abbreviation where the X represents the Greek letter chi, with a hard ch, which is the first letter of Christ's name in Greek. However, because of the modern interpretations of the letter X, many people are unaware of this and assume that this abbreviation is meant to drop Christ from Christmas.

In ancient Christian art X and XR (Chi Ro--the first two letters in Greek of Christos) abbreviate Christ's name. In many manuscripts of the New Testament, X abbreviates Christos (Xristos). The Oxford English Dictionary documents the use of this abbreviation back to 1551, fifty years before the first English colonists came to America and sixty years earlier than the completion of the King James Version of the Bible. At the same time, Xian and Xianity were in frequent use as abbreviations of Christian and Christianity.

The abbreviation is widely but not universally accepted; some view it as demeaning to Christ. Similarly, Xianity is sometimes used as the abbreviation for Christianity (although this usage is much less common than "Xmas").

I never knew this. I had also heard it was an atheist way of eliminating Christ from Christmas. ("crossing" him out of Christmas) I was wrong.

[Steven]

Originally Posted by zoedragon

Taken from the Q&A thread:


I figure this might turn into a debate, so I started its own thread so the QA thread would remain fun.

Anyway, I don't see why atheists would bother crossing Christ out of Christmas. It's a religious holiday so why would they bother celebrating it at all? I personally think it's just people being too darn lazy to spell it out when they scribble down notes.

I remember in third grade, my teacher became extremely angry when one of the students wrote X-mas on a greeting card instead of Christmas. I didn't understand why she got so angry. Although at the time I didn't realize that her bringing her public school class to church was weird.

[zoedragon]

Thanks for the history lesson iKwak! Very enlightening! I guess the origins of many aspects of language get lost, so people invent things to fill the gap. We'll have to remember the details so next time someone gives you a hard time for writing Xmas you can give them a ilttle linguistics history lesson.

[zoedragon]

Originally Posted by Steven

I remember in third grade, my teacher became extremely angry when one of the students wrote X-mas on a greeting card instead of Christmas. I didn't understand why she got so angry. Although at the time I didn't realize that her bringing her public school class to church was weird.

That is weird. What was she doing teaching at a public school?

[Steven]

Originally Posted by zoedragon

That is weird. What was she doing teaching at a public school?

It was weird, but I don't think it was illegal. It was a weekday so the church was not in service. I don't remember why she brought us there at all. I barely can remember the church. So that may be an indication that we weren't at the church too long. We may have stopped there on the way to the zoo or something. But if that is the case, I have no memory of it. She talked about her family a lot. She may have brought us there just to show us where they spent a lot of their time.

[Postergirl7]

tht's so funny - i remember taking a walking field trip to a church when i was young (i went to a public school) but i think it was because we were going to see the organ (part of music education).