Desmond and The Spelling of Christmas Revisited.

I happened on a Yahoo!question today which reminded me of something I blogged nearly a year ago. Back then, I ended off by voicing my irritation at the use of 'Xmas' instead of 'Christmas'. Some friends came up to me after and offered the explanation of the 'X'.

According to them, 'X' is a substitute for 'Christ' -- the idea being to cut Christ out of a supposedly Christian holiday. That sounded legit; much better than my reasoning, which, for the record, was less conspiracy-theorist. I just always assumed the 'X' was an homage to Jesus' cross!

Of course you might say by that logic, it should really have been 'tmas'. But 'tmas' is really ugly compared to 'Xmas', and let's face it:"Happy Tuh-mas"? -- Sounds like we're celebrating a new Thermos-flask.

As it turns out, it was never a nefarious plot to cut Christ out of the festival, nor was it hieroglyphic-homage to the cross. Apparently, 'X' is representative of the Greek letter 'chi'. ('Chi' being the first letter of the Greek word for Christ: "Cristos".) Somewhere along history, people became accustomed to using 'X' to represent 'Christ' in writing.

Incidentally, 'Xmas' is pronounced "Christmas' and not "Ex-mas".

Of course, some people do use 'Xmas' for lesser reasons, but I'm glad the word started off with no ill-meaning. Because Christmas feels better when received without scepticism.

('Tmas' is uglier than 'Xmas', but guess what? 'Xmas' is still pretty ugly. This Individual still thinks 'Christmas' is the right way to go for an authentic Christmas experience. Don't be lazy. Here's the article he found that enlightened him, and here's the Wiki-article on the same issue, because people wiki everything.)