mjuba101
Senior Member
- Oct 24, 2013
- 159
- 65
Heres a holiday surprise that only the dictionary can provide. Do you find the word Xmas, as an abbreviation for Christmas, offensive? Many people do.
You wont find Xmas in church songbooks or even on many greeting cards. Xmas is popularly associated with a trend towards materialism, and sometimes the target of people who decry the emergence of general holiday observance instead of particular cultural and religious ritual.
But the history of the word Xmas is actually more respectable and fascinating than you might suspect. First of all, the abbreviation predates by centuries its use in gaudy advertisements. It was first used in the mid 1500s. X is the Greek letter chi, the initial letter in the word Χριστός. And heres the kicker: Χριστός means Christ. X has been an acceptable representation of the word Christ for hundreds of years. This device is known as a Christogram. The mas in Xmas is the Old English word for mass. (The thought-provoking etymology of mass can be found here.) In the same vein, the dignified terms Xpian and Xtian have been used in place of the word Christian".
You wont find Xmas in church songbooks or even on many greeting cards. Xmas is popularly associated with a trend towards materialism, and sometimes the target of people who decry the emergence of general holiday observance instead of particular cultural and religious ritual.
But the history of the word Xmas is actually more respectable and fascinating than you might suspect. First of all, the abbreviation predates by centuries its use in gaudy advertisements. It was first used in the mid 1500s. X is the Greek letter chi, the initial letter in the word Χριστός. And heres the kicker: Χριστός means Christ. X has been an acceptable representation of the word Christ for hundreds of years. This device is known as a Christogram. The mas in Xmas is the Old English word for mass. (The thought-provoking etymology of mass can be found here.) In the same vein, the dignified terms Xpian and Xtian have been used in place of the word Christian".