DaibhidC
Since: Jan, 2001
Dec 27th 2017 at 1:43:12 PM
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That's not what Etymology Online says
:
- c. 1200, "to baptize into the Christian church," from Old English cristnian "to baptize," literally "to make Christian," from cristen "Christian" (see Christian).
Although it is true that Christos means "the annointed one", and Terry was fond of plausible-but-different etymologies, so maybe that's the origin in Morporkian.
ScroogeMacDuck
Since: May, 2015
Nov 14th 2015 at 3:03:04 AM
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There is a warning on not putting real-life other names for other Holidays than Christmas. But I feel that Grinch Night (Grinch version of Halloween in the cartoon, used in a TV special) fits the bill perfectly… except that it's not a Christmas alternate universe expy, but a Halloween one…
Removed this exchange for thread mode reasons.
** Not quite a holiday, but Terry slips up once and refers to a child being Christened in Mort. Woops.
*** In fact, "christening" means more or less literally "anointing". At several points during the Catholic baptism (known as christening) the penitent is anointed (with water, with oil, and with chrism [itself a mixture of olive oil and balsam... Catholics like their babies savory]). In fact, anointing with oils was a very common practice across cultures, as such oils were central to their lives. Christening may be the more common term, but there it is.
The latter troper is correct. and in fact, the former has it backwards. Jesus is called Christ because he was "the anointed one", i.e. kristos, covered in oil. Which means "christen" is a perfectly cromulent word for any culture that anoints things, and has nothing necessarily to do with Jesus or Christianity — so Terry didn't necessarily slip up at all, and it doesn't need to be mentioned. :-) Hide / Show Replies