I think, as the Court likes to say in EC cases, that purpose matters when someone uses Xmas or Xtian instead of Christmas or Christian. Did you use the abbreviation merely as a shortcut (if so, did you abbreviate lots of other words in your sentence or paragraph), or did you use the X because you think the name of Christ is offensive to non-Xtians? Do you often use Greek letters to shorten English words? Or is this the only one you use?
Frankly, my dears, I don't give a darn about words like Democrat Party or Xmas.
But I am offended when the word "Fundamentalist" is used in an effort to marginalize a Baptist or a Methodist or an evangelical. And that word gets used on this list all the time to describe people, like Jim, who don't self-identify as "Fundamentalists." Another word that gets tossed around in circles like this is "homophobe" to describe reasonable folks who merely believe in traditional sexual morality. And, of course, since we now have a Supreme Court vacancy, we will see the words "extremist" and "outside the mainstream" used to describe reasonable conservatives like Roberts and Scalia.
Cheers, Rick Duncan
Eric Treene <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I recall being taught in Sunday school that early Christians sometimes used
an X to signify Christ, in order to avoid persecution. That, I was told, is
why X-mas is perfectly acceptable. Xtians would seem to be acceptable as
well.
Indeed, the term Christian originated as a put-down applied to the followers
of Christ (like the term "Christer" used by Madelyn Murry O'Hair and
sometimes used by others to denigrate Christians today in some quarters).
Christians eventually took on the label. Who knows, perhaps Christer will
come into vogue among Christians. Language is funny that way. 50 years
from now Democrats may prefer "Democrat party."
Eric Treene
(in my personal capacity).
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Will Linden
Sent: Wednesday,! July 20, 2005 4:32 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Assaults on the England language
At 09:19 AM 7/20/05 -0500, you wrote:
>I never associated Democrat Party with McCarthy, although I'm not all that
>surprised to learn that he originated it. I always associated it with
>middle school. It is intended to be somehow insulting without really
>having any discernable meaning and without being very clever
Like "Xtians"?
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Rick Duncan
Welpton Professor of Law
University of Nebraska College of Law
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902
"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, i! ndexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered." --The Prisoner
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