Word Play: The exalted language of Christmas

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Up next, WordPlay for December.

At Christmas, even our language dresses up. WORLD’s George Grant listens closely to the words we save for the season—and what they have to tell us.

GEORGE GRANT: By now I’m sure you have heard it, said it, sung it, and maybe even written it. It is the special vocabulary that we reserve for this, “the most wonderful time of the year.” It is what linguists, grammarians, and etymologists call “the exalted language of Christmas.” It is a style of speaking, writing, and singing aimed at emphasizing the high spiritual significance of the birth of Christ and the various traditions surrounding its celebration. It is the elevated vocabulary, the ceremonial syntax, and the ornamental imagery we use to highlight our gladness and joy.

Some of the exalted vocabulary words of Christmas are archaic and antiquarian, yet we gleefully sing them in hymns and anthems: hark and yon, deck and don, jolly and jingle, gild and gloam, hither and thither, lore and yore, aye and e’re, glistering and glittering, hail and herald, glad tidings and sure abiding.

Some of the exalted vocabulary words of Christmas are holdovers from the various linguistic threads that created modern English. Yule, another word for Christmas, comes from the Norse word jol, the twelve-day season from Christmas to Epiphany. The nog in eggnog, comes from, naeg, the style of winter ale brewed in 17th century Essex, but its origin goes back to an even older Scots Gaelic term, nugh, meaning beer warmed with a fire iron or poker. Merry is a word that comes to us from Anglo Saxon meaning both courageous and joyful, both bold and gladsome—as in Robin Hood’s “merry men” or Shakespeare’s “merry gales” and “merry weather.”

Some of the exalted vocabulary words of Christmas are terms either borrowed directly or transliterated from other languages: nativity and noel, fetching and festive, tidings and tannenbaum. Gloria in Excelsis Deo is Latin. Joy comes from the old Norman, which in turn was passed down from Latin. There is the Dutch mistletoe and the Greek carols, the Latin advent and the Norman tinsel. All have passed into the English melting pot of our exalted Christmas parlance. And all declare the same message: Good news! Be ye glad! Take heart! On this, the grandest of all festivals, the promise is fulfilled: “He has come to make His blessings flow as far as the curse is found.”

We wrap our Christmas presents in baubles and bows, shiny paper and fleeced ribbons. We decorate our homes with holly and ivy, mistletoe and yule logs, twinkling lights and conifer trees, ornaments and nutcrackers. It shouldn’t surprise us then that we would adorn our sentences with an exalted vocabulary—the festive language of Christmas.

So, “repeat the sounding joy!” Feliz Navidad! Joyeux Noel! Merry Christmas!

I’m George Grant.

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