 Today, in surprisingly connected etymologies, we're thinking about Christmas and taking a look at some festive vocab. Over the yule tide season, you might sit down to dinner and pull one of those Christmas crackers, which, in addition to their bang, will give you a tissue paper crown, a small trinket, and a terrible joke. And you know what? That joke may be, etymologically, the perfect thing for yule. As you see yule, which originally referred not to Christmas, but a pagan Germanic midwinter fertility festival, from Old English yule, which is yule in Old Norse, may ultimately descend from the Proto-Indo-European root yek, to speak, from which we also get words such as joke, juggle, and jule, all through Latin yocus, joke, jest, sport, pastime. Unless, of course, yule comes from the root quell, to turn, because of the turning of the year that happens at that time. Sticking with the festivities, you know that old Christmas carol, here we come a-wasselling? Well, it's all about drinking a toast to someone's health. Wasseil comes from the Old English expression, waishal, be hail. The same Germanic root that produced Old English hal also led to the word health. This Old English expression came to be used as a sort of toast, and eventually transferred over to the drink itself. The wasseil cup, which was kind of like the hot punch you get at Christmas parties. Only it included more stuff in it, like cream, egg, nuts, and, believe it or not, toast. Kind of like the way we put croutons in soup. And so the story goes, that's where we get the expression to give a toast from. When one saucy gentleman, upon seeing a beautiful woman bathing in the public baths, scooped up a cup of the bathwater and drank to her health. And his even saucier friend said, you can keep the drink, I'll take the toast. In other words, referring to the woman floating in the water. Also in the realm of Christmas carols, next time you sing the carol the 12 days of Christmas, don't interrupt the line about the partridge to fart loudly. Or perhaps you should, because the only English word related to partridge is the word fart. These words descend from the Proto-Indo-European root paired to fart loudly. The sound of the partridge's wings beating was reminiscent of the farting sound. Quickly moving on, are you hoping Santa will leave you some cream filled chocolates in your Christmas stockings on Christmas Eve? Well, etymologically he should. Christmas obviously comes from Christ, which literally means anointed, coming from the Proto-Indo-European root gray to rub. And that root also gives us such words as grime, grizzly, and more appetizingly, cream. Of course Santa will come by means of his reindeer pulled sleigh, but as it turns out, all of the other reindeer probably should have been shunning Rudolph, as he seems to be a wolf in reindeer's clothing. The name of that most famous reindeer of all, Rudolph, literally means famous wolf, the off part related to the word wolf, a common Germanic name element found in the name of the hero Beowulf, and the first part from Germanic ruad, fame, glory, also a Germanic name element also found in the name Roger, literally famous spear. After Christmas, will you be making any New Year's resolutions, like eating better and exercising more to lose a few pounds? Well that only makes sense etymologically speaking. And finally, January 6th is 12th night, a day when many people take the ornaments off their Christmas tree and store them in an orderly fashion for next year, and etymologically this only makes sense. Ornament comes from Latin ornare to adorn, which comes from the proto-etalic root ord to arrange, which also leads to Latin ordo, arrangement, and English order. Thanks for watching. This is one in a series of occasional short videos about connected etymologies. To see more you can also follow the endless knot on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Happy Holidays!