That's so interesting! I remember when I was about five referring to Mary Christ and Joseph Christ because I thought that "Christ" was Jesus's surname.... 😂 My Sunday school teacher patiently explained....
Meanwhile, I pronounce "Christmas" with and without the "t". I expect it's to do with going to church every week from the age of three and hearing it there, and likely from my grandad, who was a Methodist lay preacher. It's important for religious people to remember that it's about Christ's birth, so the part of the word which is part of his name is pronounced as-is.
And also, I would think, as reverence. I remember my mum getting upset when my cousin wrote "merry xmas" in a Christmas card because she said it was disrespectful, but of course "X" has a long history in the church as an abbreviation for Christ and I've seen it used by vicars in parish registers, as in, "Xenings in the year 1785" or "received into X's flock". Of course, back then, parish priests were educated in the Classics at Oxbridge, so the Ancient Greek X came naturally. Rarely, I've seen them even write epithets in Greek beside the name of someone important in the burial register.
And then we have Puritans who wouldn't say "Christmas" because it's all a bit too Catholic what with the word "mass" in them. But some of them would say "Christtide" instead. Long i returns, imagine, in that word. But absolutely no spicy, fruit puddings!
That's an interesting point about the Puritans... and especially interesting to see the long i returning in Christtide. I looked into the etymology of Christtide and found that a phrase Crīstes tīd 'Christ's tide' (where "tide" means 'time') did exist here and there in Old English. But the Christtide of the Puritans seems to have been coined independently of that in the 16th century. We can tell it's not a survival of the Old English form the Old English form would have falled victim to Trisyllabic Shortening. Beautiful!
I find it interesting that in most European languages there is no use of "Christ" in their terms for Christmas. For example, neither Spanish, nor French, nor German, among others, nor any of the Scandinavian languages use it in their "Christmas-es". In non-Indo European Finnish the holiday is "joulu" (certainly a cognate of Swedish "jul", related to OE "geol", i.e. yule).
Yes, that's very true - I wonder why that is? I wonder if they felt disrespectful using Christ's name in the name for Christmas? (In the same way that people are very careful about saying "God" and variations).
It’s the holiday season, Colin, and you and I both have had words on the brain. You covered “Christmas” more thoroughly than I did, but I took up “wassail,” “O come all ye,” and others.
Brillinat breakdown! The trisyllabic shortening pattern is wild when you start noticing it everywhere. I've been catching myself naturally doing this with newer compound words too, like when people say "wed-ing" insead of "wedd-ing." Makes me wonder if we're still actively applying these old phonetic rules without realizing it, just optimizing for speech efficiency whenever we smoosh words together.
On reading the word "dismissal" and the two traditional explanations let me offer a third which makes perfect sense from my non-denominational relationship with Christianity. Christ making the perfect sacrifice for the sins of mankind through His death on the cross dismissed all guilt, culpability for all mankind who will place their faith in Him. It was a once for all dismissal. As I understand the Catholic eucharist they suppose this process has to be repeated in rites over and over and over. Protestant denominations substitute conformance to various fine points of belief while we non-denominationalists simply chose Him and seek daily relationship with Him. Please excuse if this sounds like I'm trying to proselyte, but simply to say we believe, and find biblical and relational support for dismissal once and done.
In this post, do I understand correctly that you suggest that Old English long vs short vowels had different qualities? For example ī sounded like modern English long e while i sounded like modern English short i?
And if they did differ in quality, did they *also* differ in quantity?
That's so interesting! I remember when I was about five referring to Mary Christ and Joseph Christ because I thought that "Christ" was Jesus's surname.... 😂 My Sunday school teacher patiently explained....
Meanwhile, I pronounce "Christmas" with and without the "t". I expect it's to do with going to church every week from the age of three and hearing it there, and likely from my grandad, who was a Methodist lay preacher. It's important for religious people to remember that it's about Christ's birth, so the part of the word which is part of his name is pronounced as-is.
And also, I would think, as reverence. I remember my mum getting upset when my cousin wrote "merry xmas" in a Christmas card because she said it was disrespectful, but of course "X" has a long history in the church as an abbreviation for Christ and I've seen it used by vicars in parish registers, as in, "Xenings in the year 1785" or "received into X's flock". Of course, back then, parish priests were educated in the Classics at Oxbridge, so the Ancient Greek X came naturally. Rarely, I've seen them even write epithets in Greek beside the name of someone important in the burial register.
And then we have Puritans who wouldn't say "Christmas" because it's all a bit too Catholic what with the word "mass" in them. But some of them would say "Christtide" instead. Long i returns, imagine, in that word. But absolutely no spicy, fruit puddings!
That's an interesting point about the Puritans... and especially interesting to see the long i returning in Christtide. I looked into the etymology of Christtide and found that a phrase Crīstes tīd 'Christ's tide' (where "tide" means 'time') did exist here and there in Old English. But the Christtide of the Puritans seems to have been coined independently of that in the 16th century. We can tell it's not a survival of the Old English form the Old English form would have falled victim to Trisyllabic Shortening. Beautiful!
That's fascinating! Wow! And I love that you went down that rabbit hole and came up with something cool!
I find it interesting that in most European languages there is no use of "Christ" in their terms for Christmas. For example, neither Spanish, nor French, nor German, among others, nor any of the Scandinavian languages use it in their "Christmas-es". In non-Indo European Finnish the holiday is "joulu" (certainly a cognate of Swedish "jul", related to OE "geol", i.e. yule).
Yes, that's very true - I wonder why that is? I wonder if they felt disrespectful using Christ's name in the name for Christmas? (In the same way that people are very careful about saying "God" and variations).
I wondered about words like divine vs divinity before, Now, I know about trisyllabic shortening for unstressed syllables, and can nod to that.
Yuletide greetings to one and all.
And to you!
Fascinating, thank you! I’m enjoying wassail and waiting for the wassail stack. ;) Happy Holidays! 🎄✨
Thank you, Sarah! Same to you!
Thanks and Merry Christmas!
Thank you, Alan! Merry Christmas to you too!
It’s the holiday season, Colin, and you and I both have had words on the brain. You covered “Christmas” more thoroughly than I did, but I took up “wassail,” “O come all ye,” and others.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mindinclined/p/the-language-of-christmas?r=44ohic&utm_medium=ios
very interesting... is it a similar process that got us long i Chrīst --> short i Christian?
I believe so, since the middle 'i' in Christian would have been pronounced as a separate syllable in the Middle Ages.
Brillinat breakdown! The trisyllabic shortening pattern is wild when you start noticing it everywhere. I've been catching myself naturally doing this with newer compound words too, like when people say "wed-ing" insead of "wedd-ing." Makes me wonder if we're still actively applying these old phonetic rules without realizing it, just optimizing for speech efficiency whenever we smoosh words together.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
Nothing finer than the Vince Guaraldi music for Peanuts.
Probably the first jazz North American kids ever heard.
Couldn't agree more!
Love the internal monologuing from the Professor––thanks for sharing and merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
On reading the word "dismissal" and the two traditional explanations let me offer a third which makes perfect sense from my non-denominational relationship with Christianity. Christ making the perfect sacrifice for the sins of mankind through His death on the cross dismissed all guilt, culpability for all mankind who will place their faith in Him. It was a once for all dismissal. As I understand the Catholic eucharist they suppose this process has to be repeated in rites over and over and over. Protestant denominations substitute conformance to various fine points of belief while we non-denominationalists simply chose Him and seek daily relationship with Him. Please excuse if this sounds like I'm trying to proselyte, but simply to say we believe, and find biblical and relational support for dismissal once and done.
Fascinating! Thanks, and a Merry Christmas... 🙏
Fabulous. Thank you, and Merry Christmas!
Mairy Krismus to yoo tou, Colin ;-) .
In this post, do I understand correctly that you suggest that Old English long vs short vowels had different qualities? For example ī sounded like modern English long e while i sounded like modern English short i?
And if they did differ in quality, did they *also* differ in quantity?