by Kevin Burton
Uh-oh, I think I may be archaic.
Our friends at Merriam-Webster dictionary served up a timely platter of cookies this week, a list of “archaic” words we know from Christmas songs. Well I just used one of these words last week on Page 7!
In order to keep this the most wonderful time of the year, I will turn quickly from that thought to the words and phrases. themselves. I learned a thing or two from this list, hope you will too:
Christmas
Christmas literally mean’s “Christ’s mass.” Both Christ and mass came to Germanic languages from Latin before they arrived in England, as the late Roman Empire became Christianized and some religious terms spread throughout Europe. When the first Germanic speakers arrived in England from what is now Denmark and northern Germany, they brought with them a few words taken from Latin as part of what became the first recorded English vocabulary.
This group of terms wasn’t left behind by the earlier Roman occupation of Britain. These words of Latin origin were brought over by the new settlers, and also include street, belt, butter, chalk, cheese, wall, and wine. Religious terms that were brought over at that time include priest, bishop, nun, monk, pope, and hymn. They are among the first words of Latin derivation to be added to the Germanic language that became Old English; many thousands more would come following the Norman Conquest and the introduction of Latin-based scientific vocabulary during the Renaissance and Enlightenment.
Compression of compounds or syllables over time is frequently seen in words. That’s how Christ’s mass became shortened to Christmas, just as holiday comes from holy day. A few saints’ masses also became English words; they include Michaelmas, Martinmas, and Hilarymas.
Yule
Yule is used as an informal, warm, and old-fashioned synonym for Christmas in songs, poems, and greeting cards. Yule was the name of the ancient winter solstice festival that pre-dated Christianity. In some ways the old overlapped with the new, and as the Christmas holiday became the most important December religious observance in Medieval England, it displaced pagan celebrations and the older term began to be used with the new meaning.
It gets doubly oldy-timey when we encounter this word as yuletide, meaning the Christmas season.
Merry
English has lots of synonyms for happy: cheerful, jolly, joyful, mirthful and even content. But none of them are more closely associated with Christmas than merry.
Merry dates back to Old English, meaning that it was in use before the 12th century, and, while it is occasionally used today in neutral contexts that have nothing to do with Christmas (unlike, say, hark or yule), it has a distinct archaic ring to it. We associate it with the medieval legend of Robin Hood and his “Merry Men,” and with the old-fashioned phrase make merry.
As a holiday gift to true word nerds: merry wears a special grammatical holiday sweater in the title of the song “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” since merry describes the “rest” and not the “gentlemen.” It really means “may you gentlemen rest happily,” and not “may you happy gentlemen now rest.” Think of merry here as merrily, since, in this case, merry is an (archaic) adverb.
Tidings
Comprehension often comes from context. Most people probably don’t wonder too much about the meaning of tidings when they sing them in famous holiday songs:
Tidings of comfort and joy
And:
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin
And yet this word’s meaning maybe isn’t perfectly clear after all. It could be taken to mean “wishes” or “greetings,” with a general sense of “best wishes to you” or “happy greetings to you”—logical for the circumstances of a holiday song. But tidings really means “news” or, according to Samuel Johnson’s famous dictionary of 1755, “an account of something that has happened.”
So “good tidings” means “good news.” If you think that has a biblical ring to it, you’re on the right track, since tidings is used in the Book of Luke. Here is the King James Bible’s wording:
‘Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.’
Tidings is connected to the verb betide, another archaism, best known in the phrase “woe betide them,” meaning “may sadness befall them” or “may sadness happen to them.” Betide means “to happen to” and tidings are “happenings” or “news.” It’s no coincidence that tidings brings to mind Yuletide and Christmastide or even Eastertide. Tide here means “an ecclesiastical anniversary or festival or its season,” so Yuletide is when Yule “happens.”
Yon
Yon is a shortened form of yonder, meaning “at some distance” or “over there,” depending on whether the word is serving as an adjective or an adverb. We also enter the spelling yond for this word.
This is a truly old-fashioned sounding word in both its short and longer forms. Shakespeare used yon over thirty times in his plays, about half as frequently as he used yonder. In the song “Silent Night,” we see yon in its most famous use in a Christmas carol:
Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Vision is a part of the meaning of yon and yonder; our definition of the adverb is “at or in that indicated more or less distant place usually within sight.” It’s used to indicate something that you can see and point toward. The lyrics for “Silent Night” paint a picture in words, and “all is bright around that young mother and child” is what is being depicted. Round here is another archaic-sounding adverb, adding to the atmosphere of a long-ago scene.
Interestingly, these English lyrics weren’t written until the late 1800s, when yon and round were already evocative of the language of the past. It’s a deliberately nostalgic choice of words.
(For the record, “tidings” is the word I used in one of my recent blogs. But I didn’t use “betide” so there may be some hope for me.)
Tomorrow, more old words from Christmas songs, and one from New Year’s Eve.
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