The word ‘cretin’ comes from the French ‘Chrétien’ which means Christian. In the 18th century French alps where Christianity was common people would greet each other with ‘Chrétien’ as a nod to their common beliefs. In this part of France there were many people with stunted mental growth, dwarfism and enlarged heads thus their greeting was used to describe the condition of cretinism. There is some speculation that the word was also used as it implied they were still human despite their misgivings; a reflection on their belief that Christ forgave us our sins, but probably due to a low opinion of Catholics during the revolution.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 23:52:19 +0000