Christmas: Surprisingly Connected Etymologies
Today in “Surprisingly Connected Etymologies”,
we’re thinking about Christmas and taking a look at some festive vocab. Over the Yuletide season, you might sit down
to dinner and pull one of those Christmas crackers, which in addition to their bang
will give you a tissue paper crown, a small trinket, and a terrible joke. And you know what, that joke may be etymologically
the perfect thing for Yule. Because you see, Yule, which originally referred
not to Christmas but a pagan Germanic midwinter fertility festival, from Old English folklore
(which is jol in Old Norse), may ultimately descend from the Proto-Indo-European root
*yes- “to speak”, from which we also get words such as a joke, juggle, and jewel (all
through Latin focus “joke, jest, sport, pastime”), probably through the notion of
“festivity”. Unless of course, Yule comes from the root
*spinning- “to turn”, because of the turning of the year that happens at that time. Sticking with the festivities, you know that
old Christmas carol Here We Come A-wassailing? Well, it’s all about drinking a toast to
someone’s health. Wassail comes from the Old English expression
hail “be hale”.
The same Germanic root that produced Old English
hail also led to the word health. This Old English expression came to be used
as a sort of toast, and eventually transferred over to the drink itself, the wassail cup,
which was kind of like the hot punch you get at Christmas parties, only it included more
stuff in it, like cream, egg, and nuts, and believe it or not toast, kind of like the
the way we put croutons in soup. And, so the story goes, that’s where we
get the expression “to give a toast” from, when one saucy gentleman upon seeing a beautiful
woman bathing in the public baths scooped up a cup of the bath water and drank to her
health and his even saucier friend said, “you can keep the drink, I’ll take the
toast” in other words the woman floating in the water.
Also in the realm of Christmas carols, next
time you sing the carol The Twelve Days of Christmas, don’t interrupt the line about
the partridge to fart loudly. Or perhaps you should! Because the only English word related to partridge
is the word fart. These words descend from the Proto-Indo-European
root *period- “to fart loudly”. The sound of the partridge’s
wings beating was reminiscent of the farting sound. Moving quickly on: are you hoping Santa will
leave you some cream-filled chocolates in your Christmas stockings on Christmas eve? Well, etymologically he should.
Christmas comes from Christ, which
means “anointed”, coming from the Proto-Indo-European root *rei- “to
rub”, and that root also gives us such words as grime, grisly, and, more appetizingly,
cream. Of course, Santa will come using his
reindeer-pulled sleigh, but as it turns out, all of the other reindeer probably should
have been shunning Rudolph, always as he seems to be a wolf in reindeer clothing.
The name of that most famous reindeer of all, 
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Rudolph, literally means “famous wolf”, the -Dolph part is related to the word wolf, a
common Germanic name element found in the name of the hero Beowulf, and the first part
from the Germanic proud “fame, glory”, also a Germanic name element found in the
name Roger, literally “famous spear”. After Christmas, will you be making any New
Year’s resolutions, like eating better and exercising more to lose a few pounds? Well, that only makes sense, etymologically
speaking. The resolution comes from the Latin re- “again”
+ wolverine “loosen, untie” from the Proto-Indo-European *so-lu- made up of the prefix *so- “apart”
and *leu- “loosen, divide, cut apart”. This root, through Proto-Germanic *laura-
and Old English loser “be lost, perish”, gives us English loss. And finally, January 6th is Twelfth Night,
a day when many people take the ornaments off their Christmas tree and store them in
an orderly fashion for next year, and etymologically this only makes sense. Ornament comes from the Latin honey “adorn”
which comes from the Proto-Italic root *ord- “to arrange”, which also leads to Latin
ordo “arrangement” and English order.
Thanks for watching! This is one in a series of occasional short
videos about connected etymologies; to see more, you can also follow the Endless Knot
on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Happy holidays!
