Word for Word: X-mas

For years, many devout Christians have claimed that the abbreviation "X-mas" is tantamount to blasphemy. While devotion and ignorance are not necessarily synonymous, it behooves those with immoderate convictions (religious or otherwise) to scrutinize their persuasions in order to ensure that they have not mistaken ill-informed precepts for absolute truth.

As a matter of fact, the Catholic Church coined the abbreviation "X-mas."

In the original Greek version of the New Testament the word "Christ" (Khristos) begins with the Greek character "X," or "chi" and appears as follows:

Χριστός

The Roman letter "X" (the 24th letter of our alphabet) is identical in appearance to the Greek character "chi." In the early days of printing and typesetting, the Church began abbreviating the word "Christ" with the letter "X." (Such abbreviations were highly cost effective and, as a result, a common phenomenon.)

"X" was embraced as a proxy for the word "Christ" and appeared in a variety of abbreviations, including "X-ian" (Christian), "X-enned" (Christened), and, of course, "X-mas."

There you have it!

And, please, have a Merry Christmas!