Does anyone do this as a normal pronuncition? I mean, saying Christmas with a long i in the first syllable, exactly as if it were the two words “Christ” and “Mass”?
Because the announcer on the Price is Right said it that way today, at least twice in close succession near the end of the show. He was doing one of those little your prizes turned into a story final showcase spiels, and he clearly said "It was the night before CHRIST MASS and all through the house’ …and while I was wondering if it was some tongue slip or I’d imagined it, he said it as CHRIST MASS a second time.
So, is this some new thing (a ‘put Christ back in Christmas campaign’?), or it that pronunciation used in some region of the US I’ve just never happened upon?
If I heard someone pronouncing Xmas like that, I’d assume they were some Variety of Fundamentalist with an agenda.
'Course, I’ve been known to say ‘Happy Dead Jesus Day’ on Easter, so…
Sounds to me like the announcer’s reaction to the latest “PC” trend (on television anyway) not to mention Christmas at all, favoring “holidays” as a way not to offend sensitive non-Christians. Personally, I find the whole “happy holidays” thing silly. Some people will be offended no matter what you say, and I think that’s their problem. Watch, though. The announcer probably won’t do it again, because somebody probably complained to CBS. Gotta be politically correct. :dubious:
I think the announcer should be whacked with a cluestick. WHY is he using a non-standard pronunciation? Seems to me like he is letting his beliefs influence his announcing. And it is a safe bet that the decision to use the word “Christmas” instead of “holidays” was that of the producers, and not the announcer. This show is taped. If the announcer deviated from his script, surely the producers would have edited this out.
And I doubt this is a regional pronunciation issue. TV and radio announcers actually strive to eliminate regionalization in their announcing. The reason why is that people who are unfamiliar with whatever regionalization the announcer is using might not understand what he is saying. (Or, much worse yet, think he is saying something offensive when he isn’t.)
Could someone please explain why the word “Christmas” is offensive? And for that matter what about nativity scenes that are located in front of churches?
In front of churches usually isn’t a problem, it’s having them on publicly owned (city or town or state) land.
This sometimes causes confusion, when a church itself is located on public land. I don’t know how it came about, but according to my sister, there’s a church in the middle of Bedford, MA which is built on town-owned land, and therefore they can’t have a creche or the like in front of it.
I want to be clear, I wasn’t offended or anthing. As I said, the first time I was startled and wondering if it was an accident, and then it was repeated the same way.
Well, they pretty much HAD to use Christmas in this case, seeing they were doing a parody of “The Night Before Christmas”, with the reference to ‘mice’ changed to mean computer mice, and so forth.
So how can there be a church on public land? If the church is renting the land, then they have the right to use and occupy it. If the town is letting the church stay on the land for free, isn’t there a bigger problem?
Maybe the church is a historic landmark & thus there is public involvement in its preservation. Still, not allowing it to have an outdoor Nativity is pretty asinine.
RE ChrIst-mass, I’ve never heard of it before. I’m a born-again Christian, I’ve never thought to call myself a born-again ChrIstian. L
I’m not sure of all the details, or maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention, but I think basically it happened because the town & church existed before the United States were formed, and so the rules about separation of church/state didn’t even exist yet.
Bedford (Mass.) was originally just a part of one of the abutting towns – I forget what that name was – but eventually the population grew large enough (through immigrants and children getting born, growing up, and making more) to support a local church instead of everyone having to travel 5 miles or so to the church in the main town. Naturally you want your church to be in the center of the local population to keep travel distance to worship as fair as possible. And what was already in the center of that area? A common.
As in, a large empty field where anybody’s cows could graze. A church, the building itself, doesn’t take up much room, so they decided the best place for the church was on the common itself, on the ‘back’ edge facing onto it with the main road running along the other side. This gave the church a handsome enough setting with this big field in front of it…and probably didn’t bother the cows at all.
And, apparently, that was the defining rule of what constituted a town in those days: you got a church? You’re a town. So a new boundary line was drawn, and Bedford was born. (This was, oh, 300 years or so ago.)
Anyway, the land clearly belonged to the town. The church was a joint building project by the town people on their own land, so it was town property, too. I imagine the church building itself, maybe including the exact footage under it, was sold or transferred or something to the current congregation at soon point (to take care of that separation of church/state thing) but my sister says it’s absolutely clear, legal, and commonly acknowledged that what looks like the yards around the church is still town owned property.
That’s pretty much all I know. I don’t know the name or denomination of the church, but Bedford is one of those places with an active historical society and a Minute Man Troop and colonial thises and thats and Historical Zones and what all. I imagine a bit of googling could turn up details if you’re curious.
