Passover

Filed Under American Culture (アメリカの文化), etymology | Leave a Comment

Today starts the Jewish festival of Passover. Passover is the festival that commemorates the 400 years that Jews were enslaved in Egypt. Now, this writer isn’t exactly sure how many years the Jews spent enslaved in Egypt, but a number of sources indicate about 200 years and yet even others indicate 100 years.

Anyway, the word Passover refers to the time that God sent an avenging angel to kill the first born son of the Egyptians, but spared the Israelites (in other words, the Jewish people). The angel knew which homes were Jewish because the Jews painted their door posts with the blood from a lamb. So in other words, the homes where “passed over” by the angel.

Popularity: 34%

Dec

25

Christmas - Deck the Halls

Filed Under American Culture (アメリカの文化), etymology | 1 Comment

Today is Christmas, a holiday which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. But the word “Christmas” is a combination of the words “Christ” and “Mass“.

The word “Mass” means death and was originally created by the Roman Catholic Church, and belongs exclusively to the Church of Rome. This seems strange since Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. A search on “origin of Christmas” will display an abundance of information, so I will let you do that search and leave you with one last phrase: “Deck the halls…”

Deck the halls means to decorate, but more in a lavish way (in Japanese, 豊かに、たっぷりに飾る). So you can use it like this:

Assistant: Boss, what should we do to prepare for the party?
Boss: Just deck the halls with whatever you got.

Popularity: 38%

Dec

15

Xmas

Filed Under Guidance, etymology | Leave a Comment

If you are wondering why Western culture abbreviates Christmas using Xmas, here is the reason. Some people feel it is inappropriate to use the name Jesus Christ in writing the word Christmas (just like some religious people do not like to write the word God.) But the truth is it originated early in the Middle Ages along with other symbols for Christianity. Anyway,

The letter X represents the first word Christ,
but is also the first letter in the word, Christos (which also means Christ)
and which in Greek is the letter chi (written as x).

Popularity: 49%

Aug

17

Philadelphia

Filed Under etymology | Leave a Comment

As an English teacher, the first question I get from my non-native English speaking students is where I am from. I tell them I am from Philadelphia and then the next question is where did that name come from. So, for my students, here is the origin of the word Philadelphia.

The city of Philadelphia is known as the “City of Brotherly Love.” Well it just so happens that the word Philadelphia comes from the Greek words philos and adelphos which mean loving and brother respectively.

Did you know that the word Philadelphia is also a woman’s name? Although it is rarely used in naming a baby these days, it was very popular with the Quakers who traditionally named their eldest daughter after the city.

Philadelphia is the largest city in the state of Pennsylvania named after William Penn, whose statue sits atop Philadelphia’s city hall.

Popularity: 42%