Dec 18, 2008
A word’s former meaning may inform but does not determine what the word means now.
Like this post?
Against Yuletidian mis-etymologizing:
The holy in holiday…can’t be revived by people who stamp their feet and insist that etymology is destiny.
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Same thing with “gay”. As in, “make the Yuletide gay”. So sad.
lol lol lol lol lol lalol lol lol.
I’m just sayin’.
I think they’re all ‘holy’ days, as long as we remember that the primary meaning of ‘holy’ is ‘separate or set apart’.
None of them are ‘holy’ days if we use the secondary meaning of ‘holy’ which is, ‘morally pure’.
When I grow up, I want to be a etymological Feinschmecker.
On a related note: I’ve always called the accompanying error of damning Christmas as a pagan holiday the “etiological fallacy.”
Future OED editions take note.
I also like to think I coined the phrase, “there were shouts fired,” as in, “We began arguing about the pagan origins of Christmas. It got heated. There were shouts fired.”
The only other claim I can make to a neophrasism is “the global village atheist,” a reference in its first usage case to Richard Dawkins.
I’m sure you, Abraham, can lay claim to some new coinages!
mlwj
markandlauraward.com/blog
Good point. The question is whether this is really a holy season at all. Can it be redeemed in any way? http://tinyurl.com/4qw63o
There were way too many words in that post that I don’t the definition of . . . new or otherwise!
If this is true (and I agree that it is), there are a LOT of Bible study authors out there that may need to re-evaluate their materials.
In “The Stuff of Thought” Steven Pinker facetiously illuminates the true meaning of the opening to the Declaration of Independence by sorting out all the etymology and metaphors encoded in the language:
“Some people are hanging beneath some other people, connected by cords. As stuff flows by, something forces the lower people to cut the cords and stand beside the upper people, which is what the rules require. They see some onlookers, and clear away the onlookers’ view of what forced them to do the cutting.” [pg 237]
I hope we’re not doing this to our Bibles.
Will this be true for Christmas in 20, 50, 100 years?
“The ‘Christ in Christmas’…can’t be revived by people who stamp their feet and insist that etymology is destiny.”
Maybe people aren’t insisting that etymology is destiny as much as they see value in the original meaning of a word and don’t want it taken away…even when sometimes, it already has been taken away.
I should start coming up with new words for Christmas, in case this happens. How about Jesusmas or Saviorbornday or Christgiving. Those might reinsert some meaning, if it comes to that.
@ Abigail – How about the Feast of the Nativity. Not original but it works.
I think they’re all ‘holy’ days, as long as we remember that the primary meaning of ‘holy’ is ’separate or set apart’.
None of them are ‘holy’ days if we use the secondary meaning of ‘holy’ which is, ‘morally pure’.
was this being facetious? because i can think of few people whose primary semantic relation when you say ‘holy’ is ‘separate or set apart.’ most people think ‘morally pure,’ right?
whatever you call it, it’s fun. we go all out on Christmas. but then again, we make a celebration out of everything. life’s too short to hold little crotchedy grudges about whether or not Christmas has pagan origins, whether or not to “deceive” your kids about Santa, etc. etc.
eat, drink and be merry, i say.
worry about etymology tomorrow.
Carissa – as a Messianic Jew, with an understanding of Old Covenant Hebrew and culture, I do immediately think of “set apart” before I think of “morally pure”. But the two cannot be separated.
For myself, I don’t celebrate Christmas as it is not a biblical holiday, and, sadly, I consider it more of a secular holiday in our time because we have lost the meaning of the word “holy”.
Foot stomping helps no one.
But old fences need new paint to keep them from rotting. Reminding ourselves of origins (can be) a way of mentally protecting the fence from the elements.
But I agree, foot stomping is protest and not celebration. Foot stomping has never been the prelude to dance.
Mike and I had this conversation over the word “unfortunately”
I like to cut to the chase by simply thinking of Christmas as the Incarnation Celebration.
Keri,
We need to make a distinction between semantics and theology. You mentioned that the ideas of morally pure and set apart can not be separated and while this is true in a biblical theological-ancient near eastern-graeco-roman sense, I don’t think the connection holds up as well in the 21st century western world. I imagine you have heard someone use the word “holy” to refer to it being set apart, but this is probably a result of artificial language as the result of a community rather than a reflection of broader English usage.
” Foot stomping has never been the prelude to dance.”
Guess you’ve never been to a Square Dance!
;-)