#Xmas for #Christmas is neither modern nor disrespectful to #Christians. The notion that it is a new and vulgar representation of the word Christmas seems to stem from the erroneous belief that the letter X is used to stand for the word #Christ because of its resemblance to a cross, or that the abbreviation was deliberately concocted to take the Christ out of Christmas. Actually, this usage is nearly as old as Christianity itself, and its origins lie in the fact that the first letter in the Greek word for Christ is chi, and the Greek letter chi is represented by a symbol similar to the letter X in the modern Roman alphabet. Hence Xmas is indeed perfectly legitimate abbreviation for the word Christmas (just as Xian is also sometimes used as an abbreviation of the word Christian). snopes/holidays/christmas/xmasabbr.asp Why get cross about Xmas? BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 10:56:49 +0000