B  Y    R  I  C  H  A  R  D    L  E  D  E  R  E  R

the great English etymologist Owen Barfield once wrote that "words may be made to disgorge the past that is bottled up inside of them, as coal and wine when we kindle or drink them yield up their bottled sunshine." When we uncap the sunshine that is stored inside the many words that relate to the Christmas season, we discover that the light that streams forth illuminates centuries of human history and customs. The word Christmas derives from the Old English Cristes maesse, meaning "the festival mass of Christ." Christmas is a fine example of a disguised compound — a word formed from two independent morphemes (meaning-bearing elements) that have become so closely welded together that their individual identities have been lost. Christmas is the only annual religious holiday to have received official and secular sanction by all the states. The word holiday itself is another disguised compound, descending from the Old English haligdaeg, "holy day." With the change in pronunciation has come a change in meaning so that holidays, such as Independence Day and Labor Day, are not necessarily holy. The day morpheme in holiday has also transmogrified so that one (especially if one is British) can go "on holiday" for more than one day. The name Christ is a translation of the Hebrew word messiah, "the anointed one," rendered through the Greek as Khristos. Jesus also reaches back to ancient Hebrew and the name Yeshua (Joshua), which is explained as "Jah (or Jahveh, i.e. Jehova) is salvation." We learn about Jesus through the gospels. Gospel is yet another disguised compound, from the Old English god, "good," and spel, "news." The four gospels spread the good news of the life and work of Christ. No surprise then that the four men who wrote the gospels are called evangelists, from the Greek euaggelion, which also means "good news." The babe was born in Bethlehem, a Hebrew word variously interpreted as meaning "house of bread or food," "house of fighting," or "house of the god Lahamut." The Christ child was laid in a manger, a word related to the French verb manger, "to eat." Why? Because Jesus's crib was a large wooden box that had served as a trough for feeding cattle. We call the worship of the new-born babe the Adoration, from the Latin adoratio: ad- "to," oro- "pray;" hence, "to pray to." Among those who came to worship were "wise men ... from the East," magi, a Latin word for "magician." Magi were members of an ancient Persian priestly caste of magicians and sorcerers. Incidentally, the number of wise men is never specifically mentioned in the gospels; we infer three from the gifts bestowed on the Christ child. Yuletide as a synonym for the Christmas season dates back to a heathen and then Christian period of feasting about the time of the winter solstice, December 22. The origin of yule is uncertain. One suggestion is that yule comes from the Gothic giul or hiul, which meant "wheel." In this context, yule signifies that the sun, like a wheel, has completed its annual revolution. The Gothic ol or oel and the Anglo-Saxon geol, all meaning "feast," and the Middle English yollen, "to cry aloud," have also been considered as sources for yule. Whence the tide in Yuletide? From an Old English word meaning "time," as in Easter tide and "Time and tide wait for no man." A Merry Christ Mass and Happy Holy Days to all! Here's the Verbivore's Challenge. The first reader to submit the correct answer will receive a $25 gift certificate from Borders Books and Music. December 25 is the traditional birth date of Jesus of Nazareth. Using the initials and cryptic descriptors below, identify each of the following luminaries also born on Christmas day: 1. CB: She nursed an organization into existence. 2. RR: A truly amazing cartoonist. 3. RS: Do-do-do-do, ME x 6. 4. RH: The most accomplished of all base crooks. 5. LC: A perfect season for Dolphins. Please enter your full name Please enter your email address Are your answers all filled in? If yes, press the SUBMIT button below. This quickly sends your answers back to SALON. There is no need to press this button twice. The winner of the last Verbivore was Richard E. Merrifield, who was the first to correctly answer the following question: A palindromic word reads the same forward and backward. Five-letter examples include civic and level, and seven-letter examples include deified and repaper. Surprisingly, only one common unhyphenated (pull-up is ineligible) six-letter palindromic word exists in English. Identify that word. Answer: redder Language expert Richard Lederer's latest book is "Fractured English" (Pocket Books). He comments on language for National Public Radio and other radio stations and is the Grammar Grappler for Writer's Digest. He can be reached at rlederer@tiac.net. Visit the newly-erected Verbivore Web site at http://www.tiac.net/users/rlederer/index.htm

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