Yay or nay to the use of the term "Xmas"?
I vote nay. It just looks stupid.
shareAgree - stupid
share
MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Yay or nay to the use of the term "Xmas"...
Apparently -- and, yes, I did just this minute look this up -- people have been using X as an abbreviation for 'Christ' since at least the eleventh century and 'Xmas' itself dates from the 18th century, via older versions such as X'temass and Xpmas. In Anglo-Saxon, it was Xpas Maesse.
This doesn't make it more right or more wrong, but demonstrates that people haven't changed in a thousand years. We've always been too lazy to write words out properly. FYI. G2G. LOL.
I did research and it was my inspiration to start this post. always assumed it was a business decision to make it look cooler. It just looks too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
shareI always assumed it was a relatively recent thing too. If I hadn't looked, I'd have guessed it was a twentieth century innovation. But I should've known better: these things usually turn out to be much older than I would guess.
I don't think I have any strong feelings about it one way or the other really. There are modern abbreviations that bother me more. And when I look them up, it usually turns out some Viking first did it in the eighth century.
Yeah, I'm not with with: lol, brb, lmfao abbreviations. It actually felt weird typing it.
shareI use it occasionally.
share"Yay or nay"
The word you're looking for is "yea":
yea
/yā/
adverb
yes.
"she has the right to say yea or nay"
noun
noun: yea; plural noun: yeas
an affirmative answer.
"the assembly would give the final yea or nay"
"Yay" is a common modern misspelling of "yea," and it falls into the category known as an "eggcorn":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn
"Yay" is what a child might shout when his parents tell him they're taking him to Disneyland. Unlike "yea" which is an archaic word meaning "yes" (it appears hundreds of times in the King James Version of the Bible from 1611 for example) that is mostly only used today in oral voting in combination with the also-archaic term "nay," with which it rhymes, "yay" is a modern (20th century) informal expression that wasn't even included in Webster's dictionary until maybe 10 or 15 years ago.
As for "Xmas," the funniest thing about it is the common misconception that it's a secular alternative to the term "Christmas." A lot of atheists or companies trying to appear non-religious use it these days, thinking they are taking the "Christ" out of "Christmas," when in reality, "Xmas" is an archaic religious term used to acknowledge and venerate Christ (i.e., exactly the opposite of what people suffering under the modern misconception think):
In Greek, "Christ" is written as Χριστός (Christos). The letter Chi (Χ) is the first letter of this word.share
Early Christians often used the symbol Χ as a shorthand for "Christ." This practice dates back to at least the 4th century, especially in religious writings.
Yay! 🎈
shareI always assumed the X was recent use because it doesn't really sound like something they would use before the 1900s especially with X being a Roman numeral. Maybe there were some people many years ago thinking it stood for 10mas.
shareNay. I do not use it
shareyay.
because it is the best idea to X out CHRIST when talking about a celebration about the birth of Christ.
- modern logic
I had a teacher long ago who used this exact same argument against using the term which would certainly be a valid concern if it weren't completely wrong!
https://www.vox.com/2014/12/14/7374401/jesus-xmas-christmas
except except that NO ONE ever refers to Christ as "X". No one. Ever. Even if some random historical rewrite surfaces saying a 'Z' represent disestablishmentarianism.
Satanists and atheists are ALL ABOUT the X though, if you dig in that direction. I wonder why satanists and atheists suport that so much? hmmmmm..... :D
I should state, in the long game, I don't care and none of this matters. I'm just arguing to argue :D