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Santa Claus

Christmas is coming and everywhere I am confronted with an old man with a white beard dressed all in red. I know him as Father Christmas but in the USA he is commonly called Santa Claus. This name at first seems a little strange. When I think of the word Santa I think of the Spanish word for a female saint. Many cities in the USA take their names from their Spanish founders. San Francisco in California and San Antonio in Texas are Saint Francis and Saint Anthony in English whereas Santa Barbara or Santa Monica in Los Angeles would be translated as Saint Barbara and Saint Monica. The English language does not differentiate between male and female saints and we use the same word for both. Also saint is often abbreviated to St, as in St John’s Wood or St Pancreas station in London.

But to return to Santa Claus, is Father Christmas really a woman? Well the story is rather more complicated than that. The origin of Santa Claus is a 4th-century Greek Christian called Saint Nicholas who was famous for giving generous gifts to the poor. His story becomes mixed up with pagan pre Christian myths from Germany and Holland and their traditional celebration of the winter solstice which included such familiar items as the Christmas tree. Things became even more confusing once German and Dutch immigrants took Father Christmas across the Atlantic to America. Various American writers and artists changed his image and his name became Santa Claus. Santa Claus is nothing to do with Spanish. St Nicholas is “Sankt Niklaus” in German and “Sinterklaas” in Dutch and Santa Claus is a natural phonetic alteration from the two languages.

(Source: www.englishonline.org.cn)

Johnny Grammar is English Online's resident grammar teacher. Johnny loves to tackle your worst grammar nightmares and provide you with simple explanations.

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