'Tis the season for Christmaka
Dec 15, 2003
by Gilbert A. Bouchard
|
|
|
Dr. John Considine |
The language we use to talk about our mid-winter holiday changes with the times the same way tastes in toys and decorations change, said Dr. John Considine, a professor of English at the University of Alberta and a former editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.
People who might be willing to blame politically correct types for the popularity of the term 'happy holiday season' as a substitute for 'Christmas' will be shocked to discover that the saying goes back to at least 1860 in North America, where it first cropped up in a Globe and Mail newspaper ad.
In part, Considine sees the emergence of this term as a way to separate all things commercial from the religious and family aspect of the holidays, as well as a North American desire to respect people's rights to religious freedom. But, it also reflects an ancient linguistic push-pull over how much Christian content the ancient, pan-cultural mid-winter festival should possess.
"The oldest word in the English language for the holiday is the pagan term 'Yule' (as in Yuletide, a term dating back to the original pagan solstice celebration), and the word 'Christmas' only dates back to the 11th century. But now the wheel has turned full circle, and many people are moving away from the word 'Christmas' again. This is much like the change taking place in the naming of the festival we celebrate on the 14th of February; many people call it Valentine's Day, not St. Valentine's Day, stripping away the Christian connotations," Considine said.
Of course, this see-saw evolution of words is still far less of a headache for dictionary-writers and language-watchers than newly minted words that emerge and media-generated 'slayer slang' (named after the popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show), which may or may not become a stable part of the English lexicon.
For instance, no one debates that tinsel--both the word and the decoration--is here to stay, but what about 'icicle lights' (which is being included in the Canadian Oxford dictionary), 'net lights', 'twinkle lights', or 'snowfall lights'?
"It's really hard to tell when to pounce on a word and you do need to step back from your own experience of language and think about what someone in the future may want to know or someone coming into the language may want to know about what these words mean," said Considine.
The issue is further complicated when considering brand names and the fact that companies will fight to keep their product names out of dictionaries. For instance, while citations for the generic term tofurkey (a turkey substitute made of soy) go back 20 years, Tofurky is a specific product created by a company.
The same goes for words invented by some singular clever wordsmith, Considine said. In the case of the word Crimble (used in Britain as a humourous synonym for Christmas and most likely coined by John Lennon in 1963), the term caught on enough to be included in dictionaries. But what about the term 'Chrismukkah', recently cited by the popular new TV show The O.C.? The term referred to one of the show's characters merging Hanukkah and Christmas traditions into one celebration.
While only deployed on the show a few weeks ago, 'Chrismukkah' already boasts numerous Google hits. How many usages does the word need to be included in dictionaries?
"People have always treated language with freedom, but now the Internet makes it much easier to put new words and phrases before a wide audience," Considine noted.
Related links – internal
Dr. John Considine's U of A web page: http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/english/full.html
The U of A Department of English website: http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/english/
Related link – external
The Oxford English Dictionary website: http://www.oed.com/
This article originally appeared in the University of Alberta's ExpressNews