Xmas

[sinclairmcevoy]

Why is Christmas the only holiday that's Xed? Ever heard of the X Bunny? Or how about happy Xkah? If every religious holiday were Xed, how would that be taken I wonder?
Any thoughts?

[fishbait]

In ancient Christian art, χ and χρ are abbreviations for Christ's name. In many manuscripts of the New Testament and icons, X is an abbreviation for Christos.

Christ Bunny and Christkah make no sense at all. Been hitting the egg nogg a bit hard?:D

[sinclairmcevoy]

Ohhhhh. Thanks for clearing that up. Ask a silly question, get an intelligent answer. Now I can hit the nog and get shnoggered. Merry Christmas!

[Madalch]

I used to have a crystallography instructor who would always write "xtals" and "xtallography".

[joobie]

i have seen 'xgiving' increasingly the past few years.

[shadron]

To add just a bit to Fishbait's explanation, the X is the Greek letter "chi" (pronounced "key"), which has the "ch" sound. Christ in Greek is transliterated Χρίςτ (that's chi-rho-iota-sigma-tau), which explains why the chi is a symbol for Christ. Thus Xmas is literally Christmas, abbreviated, but not trivially; in fact, our expression "X marks the spot" may well have derived from the Christian use of chi rather than the reverse. The early Christians were as abbreviation and symbol happy as any NASA engineer, living in hiding to some extent or other for the first 300 years of the church.

[casebro]

My truck has a Xmission, and a Xfer case. X= cross, cross= trans.

[alfaniner]

I think Futurama is the place I first heard it actually pronounced "Ecks-mas".

[Magic 9-Ball]

I've said "X"-mas for years, and people know exactly what I'm saying. It's a way for me to refer to Christmas without saying the word. And no ones been offended (surprisingly).

[fishbait]

Christ Bunny and Christkah make no sense at all. I'm amending my own quote. Christ Bunny makes as much sense as anything in religion, but not for everyone. Appealing to those who crave warm fuzzies rather than blood soaked action, I suppose..:p