"Goodbye" exists because of 15th century chatspeak. It's a highly abbreviated version of "God be with ye"
Oh wow!
I always assumed it was connected to the word "by" as used in "by and by", so that it would basically mean "have a good afterwards".
Cool stuff. Bob Dylan makes more sense to me now:
And goodbye is too good a word babe
So I'll just say fare thee well
I ain't sayin you did me unkind,
You could've done better, but I don't mind.
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's alright.
Adiós
Adieu
Adeus
Auf Wiedersehen
Ah dave chappelle.
Sad that the worlds humour was faster living than himself.
That whole debate is one of the dumbest things to come out of America.
The rest of the world doesn't worry about it, because Christmas is like 90% secular. The Christians do their thing today, and leave the rest of us to celebrate Christmas with friends and family and too many cold cuts of meat. You can say happy holidays and nobody's gonna get upset, but even as a non-Christian I'm more likely to wish you a merry Christmas.
(The poms and their "happy Christmas" are weird though. Just sounds wrong.)
In Danish you don't even have a way of saying "happy holidays". It's just "glædelig jul".
FYI, the majority of Americans don't give a shit either and think it's embarrassingly stupid.
The whole thing is tilting at windmills. Nobody gives a shit what you say but they want to fight this supposed force out there trying to control what people say. It doesn't exist in a way where it will ever matter.
(The poms and their "happy Christmas" are weird though. Just sounds wrong.)
As a Brit I've never heard happy Christmas. It's always merry Christmas. Then it's happy new year.
Isn't that famous John Lennon song called, "Happy Christmas (War is Over)"?
He was a Brit if I'm not mistaken.
It's widespread
Must be regional. Definitely not a thing in the southeast.
My dad's from lincs my mom's frum brum and they've always said it so it's definitely midlands
Fyi, "happy Christmas" is just the normal phrasing in the UK. "Merry Christmas" didn't start to spread until A Christmas Carol was published.
It just proves you can convince conservatives to be angry and scared about literally anything.
Will you be going on holiday?
Non native English speaker here. What's a pom?
Breakfast is the first meal you eat after breaking your fast.
You mean that without sleep we would eat all the time?
I would
I frequently midnight snack. I'll wander down and eat some cookies in the middle of the night.
Which is why, to piss of the Christians this year, we all have to say "happy solstace"
In Scandinavia we never stopped calling the holiday by it's pagan name - jul.
We've been told for a thousand years now that it's somehow supposed to refer to the birth of Christ, but the celebration is older than Christianity and nobody knows for sure the origin of it's name. As far as me and my family is concerned, it's a pagan holiday.
Happy to celebrate with my Christian friends though, there's nothing wrong with being inclusive.
God jul!
Woah, I'm guessing that's where yule as in yuletide in English comes from. A lot of Christmas traditions came out of Scandinavia so makes sense if true. Gonna look up some Jul info now.
God Jul!
Bingo!
Christmas traditions are a fun mix of things. The modern Santa Claus is mostly a mix of Saint Nicholas and a bunch of continental European traditions, but the pointy red hat is the product of being what we refer to as a nisse - a mythical creature closely related to gnomes.
We have long traditions of leaving food out for the nisse living in the barn for Christmas. And Santa is not named after Saint Nicholas over here - we call him julenissen. The Christmas gnome, if you will.
Similar thing with "Easter", which comes from the name of Ēostre, the Germanic goddess of Spring. The origins of that holiday have nothing to do with Christianity, but the day and name were hijacked by Christians sometime in the mid-2nd century.
Jovial Saturnalia
instead of being buried under 2-3 feet of snow, it was 55 degrees (F) today, so happy global warming works too.
I like to say that and blessed yule. I figure if Christian’s get to throw a hissy fit about it being their religious holiday my pagan ass gets to wish other people to have a nice version of my religious holiday.
Some of these, especially Valentine's day, could also be labeled "commercial" but I guess that's the nature of capitalism to commercialize any kind of festivities.
Tbf, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and Father's Day at least were created specifically by Hallmark to sell cards. So they were created as capitalistic commercial scams...
Valentine's Day was originally a celebration of Saint Valentine. Like Christmas, it got rolled under the capitalist machine until the modern holiday became completely unrecognizable from its roots.
I think they're thinking of Sweetest Day.
Word usage changes over time, often not retaining its original meaning, as the article points out. I find it more interesting how the European use is more broad, where Americans separate the individual recreation from work or school into the term vacation.
I thought originally it meant like Merry Christmas + Happy New Year, bc professionals might take that whole week off so like "see ya next year Bob, enjoy your holidays!" (plural)
Then some people started using it to throw in like Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Eid al-Fitr / end of Ramadan, plus there's Buddhist, Hindu, Hispanic / Latin American (Las Posadas), Scandinavian (Lussinatta), German (Krampusnacht), Chinese (Dongzhi Festival), and in UK/Canada/Australia/New Zealand. there's Boxing Day afterwards, etc.
Okay so Diwali is a bit of a stretch, being more than a month earlier but it still feels like it fits:-). The rest all occur within about a month of one another, so saying "Happy Holidays" is by definition inclusive of others who may or may not share your particular religious belief structure.
Which ofc is why Faux News had to go to war against it, promoting instead the Christmasgasm that Jesus most definitely invented (/s btw bc rather, everything He ever said or did goes directly against what they are trying to claim it is all about). But fuck Fox, do what you want, and I wish you Happy Holidays (whatever form they may take for you:-).
Pancha Ganapati
St. Valentine's day did not start as a secular celebration. St. Valentine lived in what is now Turkey, he became known as the patron saint of love because he used to marry Christians in secret when it was illegal to do so under Islamic rule.
According to Wikipedia St Valentine was a bishop in modern day Italy about 300 years before Islam even formed. So while that is a nice story I don't think it's true.
well crap. now I wonder what story I got today confused.
But this would upend the entire war on xmas narrative.
nothing is holier than my ass
We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.
** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**
Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.