Tag: Christmas
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Workplace Word Origins: Black Friday, chef, boutique
Philadelphia traffic jams, Greek storehouses, and Latin heads.
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Spelacchio, Yankee Swap, and Boxing Day: Some holiday etymologies
Over on the Oxford Dictionaries blog, I’ve written some pieces that will get you in the holiday spirit. For my latest Weekly Word Watch, I featured the Italian word spelacchio: The official Christmas tree of the city of Rome, imported from the Italian Alps at a cost of over £42,000, has been shedding its needles,…
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Santa’s reindeer: an etymological herd
Around many holiday hearths tonight, families will recite “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” a poem, properly called “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” first published anonymously in 1823 and later claimed by American professor and writer Clement Clarke Moore. Moore’s verse is considered the source of our names for Santa’s reindeer, excluding their later leader, Rudolph:…
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The true meaning of “Kris Kringle”
The Santa Claus figure, who brings children gifts each Christmas in many Western cultures, goes by many names: Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Pere Noel, Grandfather Frost, to name a few. But one name, Kris Kringle, doesn’t originally refer to any Santa at all. Kris Kringle The Oxford English Dictionary first attests Kris Kringle in James…
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Dos niños: Christmas, weather, and nursery words
What do El Niño and Christmas have in common? It’s not just the unseasonable weather much of the US is experiencing this holiday, though my drought-stricken state of California is getting a much needed White Christmas in the Sierras. No, this weather pattern and Christian holiday also share a crib, etymologically speaking. El Niño Spanish speakers will…
Mashed Radish 