Six Letters

I love brain teasers. I like word mysteries, puzzles and 3-D and other optical illusions. More likely than not, I have to read the cheat sheet to be able to solve them, but I still enjoy the challenge. Here are a couple of my favorites.

“A cab driver is going the wrong way down a one way street. Two policemen see him but don’t stop him. Why?  Or: “In the following line of letters, cross out six letters so that the remaining letters, without altering their sequence, will spell a familiar English word.”

Believe it or not there is reason to my seemingly unrelated thought processes. I was cleaning off my desk when I found my folder of icebreakers. The cross out six letters brain teaser was on top and it made me think about crossing Christ out of Christmas, therefore shortening it to Xmas. It just so happened that on the same day, yahoo.com ran a story about the origins of using “X” to replace Christ in Christmas -- therefore the jump from brain teasers to Christmas.

Admittedly I am one of those who cringe when I see “Xmas.” Not ever having taken Greek, I had not, until after reading the article, made the connection that our “X” is the Greek ‘chi’ which, when combined with ‘rho’ symbolizes Christ. Below is the article from connectamarillo.com.

“In the first story, we look at the abbreviation commonly referred to as Xmas. How did the word Christ come to be replaced by the letter “X”? Turns out it goes back to the very beginnings of Christianity. “Using the symbol “X” for Christ is a tradition that dates far back into the history of Christianity and into the first few centuries. That’s because our letter “X” is identical to the Greek letter ‘chi,” which is the first letter for Christos in Greek, and so early Christians many times would see the letter “X” or combine that with the letter ‘rho’ in Greek to symbolize Christ,” says Father Robert Busch, PhD, Amarillo Diocese Schools Director. Xmas therefore means, “Christ’s Mass,” so in many ways, the “X” stands for Christ. But some people unaware of the Greek origin of this “X” often mistakenly interpret the Xmas as an informal shortening pronounced (eks-mas). Many therefore frown upon the term Xmas because it seems to them a commercial convenience that omits Christ from Christmas. It’s also important to note that it is a written abbreviation, and should not be pronounced “X”mas, but instead as “Christmas.” Another interesting fact, in olden times when paper and ink were precious commodities, the “X” was used to save space when printing.” (connectamarillo.com))

A little Greek goes a long way but I suspect that most of us, even after a brief lesson in word origin, still prefer to see Christ in Christmas; after all, He is the reason for the season.

Copyright © 2010 Judith Bell

P.S. Let me know if you can’t figure out why the cabbie wasn’t stopped.