[CW] My XMAS 1 1/2-cents worth...

[SX-25]

To those weary of the "Xmas debate," please bear with me as I actually have a RADIO point to make...

There is no doubt our social engineers have worked overtime to strip Christians of the respect and
honor of our observance, Christmas. Almost as annually predictable as the atheists whining about a crèche in front of a library somewhere or non-Christians complaining about their various notions is the annual "X-MAS Debate."

It may come as a surprise to some that Xmas was the original name of "Christmas" used by the churches between 200 to 300  A.D. The letter "X" was not a letter but, instead it was a religious symbol of the church that meant "Christ." Later, the Greeks and Romans adopted the symbol of a fish and called it an "ex." The fish symbol we often see on places of business or trunks of cars to indicate its owner is a Christian is familiar even today. Later the fish symbol was added to the alphabet and changed to a cross, then morphed into what we know today as the letter "x," two diagonal lines crossing in the middle.

"X MAS" meant a holy day in which a religious mass or feast took place to honor Christ. And it was called, "ex-muss."

Many years later the religious symbol, "X" was morphed into secular uses for any word beginning with the first few letters of the word "Christ." >From that we became accustomed to XTAL for crystal (among others) but I have never heard anyone complaining about the word "XTAL."

I hope this does not come off as my sounding like I am some sort of pompous religious scholar; I may be pompous but I am indeed no scholar and certainly no religious scholar. However you can verify this information easily in any World Book Encyclopedia under "Christmas" or in Isaac Asimov's book, Asimov's Guide to the Bible and, no doubt, countless other sources.

So there is little need to get thy nose bent out of shape when someone uses the term, "Xmas" as it is a term of very holy origin. Of course, using it as syntax to casually abbreviate the word, "Christmas" is probably not strictly proper either. But "XMAS" does not connote blasphemy or irreverence in its pure usage. 

We all know the meaning of "73." As a solely CW operator I prefer to use the term, "58" as Christmastime. Not too many hams anymore know the meaning of "58" When they were devising abbreviations to cut down on repetitive phrases in telegraph message forms, the forerunner of the ITU assigned "73" to mean "best regards." Among the other numerical shortcuts you will find "58," which means "Merry Christmas and a happy New Year."


58 DE WA9VLK (Now, isn't that easier?)

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