Talk:Chrismon

I am suggesting an addition to be added after

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"They can also be found as decorations in and outside of christian church buildings and homes, and even found on gravestones and personal stationary."

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A particularly good example of needle point Christmas tree decorations can be found at the URL http://www.zianet.com/fpc/chrismons.htm. On that link there is a short introduction and 21 examples of chrismon needle point art work.

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It was noted that the article asked for pictoral examples. Any of these pictures are available for use. High resolution files are available. Contact aburr@aol.com. 05:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)~~ Alex. F. Burr aburr@aol.com

Ambiguity of this text

This article is based on two different uses of the name Chrismon: Christogram and Chi Rho. Some further clarification is needed Pinea (talk) 11:22, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Seems like this article might be a little redundant to the Christogram article... AnonMoos (talk) 14:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The use of terminology may be region dependent. In Medieval Spain, for example, the term Christogram is not used, but Chrismon, and its Spanish counterpart - crismon, is the standard usage for the particular format of the Chi Rho.

Staurogram

We should cover this here or at Christogram. Rich Farmbrough, 15:14, 26 September 2011 (UTC).

Need to merge Chrismon tree?

I now noticed that there is Chrismon tree which means that Chrismon tree may need to be merged into Christmas tree. I suggested it on Christmas tree. History2007 (talk) 07:31, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

"Chrismon tree" is just a random example of Christmas tree decoration and can be merged there. Also "Chrismon" simply means "monogram of Christ" and can safely be merged into Christogram. Any alleged difference between the terms will be idiosyncratic, depending on the author, and will need to be discussed case-by-case. --dab (𒁳) 11:00, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

date of the symbol vs. date of the term

the editor of this page presumably misunderstood sources which claimed the symbol dated to the 4th century (considering the Labarum as a christogram, a dubious statement, as apparently this identification was made after the fact) as saying that the term dates to the 4th century. This is not, of course, the same thing. I don't know when the term chrismon was first recorded, but it's probably a misreading of a medieval abbreviation, and not a word that existed in the 4th century; certainly, the sources which claim that the chrismon/christogram originates in the 4th century do not mean to say that the term originates there. Needless to say, "chrismon" and "christogram" also mean exactly the same thing, and we should not have one article per synonymous term, we need one article per item, hence this should be merged in any case. --dab (𒁳) 11:08, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

In post-1957 use (did the term exist before 1957?), it's not quite the same thing as Christogram, since it mainly seems to refer to handcrafting various Christian symbols (not all of them Christograms or monograms) for use as small decorations/ornaments... AnonMoos (talk) 18:14, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

In other words, I don't think that the "ornamental use" section of the current article is appropriate to be included in article Christogram, and this article should probably be rewritten to focus mainly on the ornamental uses (with the history of the Chi-Rho symbol in other articles). AnonMoos (talk) 18:20, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

OED doesn't list 'christogram' yet but dates the term 'chrismon' from at least 1872: '1872 J. D. Champlin in Appletons' Jrnl. 28 Dec. 723 (Funk), The chrismon..is found on Christian tombs of the beginning of the second century.' At this period the word 'chirho' was also used in the same sense.

OED gives chrismon's etymology however, 'Chris(tus + mon(ogramma', as from medieval Latin.RLamb (talk) 15:44, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Etymology etc (in a way continuing the previous section)

After linking to the Merriam-Webster source at Google Books I've placed a dubious and a not in citation tag (here and at the Christogram article) after the claimed herein etymology. Moreover the claim at the Merriam-Webster book seems dubious to me. Please consider e.g. the following (or try the google-game yourself): 1, 2, 3 (XX should read XXI), 4, 5, 6 and the various editions/translations of Isidore's Etymologiae (I.XX1) or other relevant texts I've found: a, b, c; d1-d2 (CTRL+F chresimon or achriston, achresimon); as a sidenote please also see e.g. the relevant French wikipedia article or the Italian one, or the Spanish one (the last probably influenced -see cited source- by the english one...).
Thanatos|talk|contributions 19:58, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Is Isidore a reliable source on any subject?

And this is the etymology the OED gives. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:37, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

• 1. If Isidore's claim is to be considered dubious then this should be justified; it's not self-evident. Other, presented by me, secondary or tertiary sources, don't seem to treat him as dubious; on this subject, at least (see 4).
• 2. It's not just Isidore; see cited sources.
• 3. What is OED's or Merriam-Webster's evidence? I see none (also see P.S.); there is not a hint of analysis, of elaboration (in the etymological sense, i.e. this from that dated then attested there, that from the other one dated...). I know that they are considered authoritative in the Anglosaxon world, nevertheless I don't think that we should treat them as infallible...
• 4. Respected dictionaries of other languages state the derivation from chresimon, e.g. Larousse. There is also no hint there of the anomalous (see 6) formation that is claimed here/at the MW/at the OED.
• 5. There is indirect evidence for the chresimon derivation in other sources used in this article: if one were to take a look at the Monogram of Christ lemma at the Catholic Encyclopaedia, one would e.g. read The Greek letters XP combined in a monogram occur on pre-Christian coins (e.g. the Attic tetradrachma and some coins of the Ptolemies), and in some Greek manuscripts of the Christian period they are employed as an abbreviation of such words as (see Greek words 2, 3, 4); unfortunately apart from the general lack of elaboration, the citations seem to be also missing from the lemma or anyway I can't understand what see Greek words etc would mean exactly if it is not to be understood as something that is to elsewhere in the lemma explained/elaborated ; does it mean that one should go to a dictionary and look, is there some other place at the Cath. Encycl. that one should look? Etc.
• 6. While my knowledge of or fluency in Latin, let alone late-medieval-low... Latin, is certainly very lacking and is dwarfed by my fluency in Greek (ancient or modern), I dare say that forming new words in either Greek or Latin by arbitrarily cutting/pasting words such as the Chris(-tus or in GEN -sti) - Mon(-ogramma) one presented here, i.e. by not following normal word formation rules, is very very rare. This, in my mind at least, serves, among other things, as negative evidence.

In other words, as attested by the presented sources and based on usual word formation rules, ultimate derivation from Greek (which is in any case trivially true as both Christus and monogramma are ultimatelly Greek words) and formation through iotacism, corruption etc in Latin, seems to me much more probable and certainly much more attested and verified. At minimum, it seems very reasonable to me that the certainty of the etymology presented in the article should be replaced by a presentation of the differing views. In any case I would certainly welcome more analytical evidence for the chris-mon and/or against the chresimon view... ;-)

P.S. In any case a. "As in the case of Christogram" is certainly not in the cited source and b. "from the Latin phrase "Christi monogramma"" is not exactly what the cited sources read (be it the Merriam-Webster one, present in the article, or The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, an analogous, and probably more specialised, to the general OED, source that I have access to EDIT: my recollection was wrong; it isn't in fact present thereat;it's also not present at the 2nd edition OED, as I've now checked; so, may I ask what exactly the OED -guessing recent edition- has to say about this subject?!?).

P.P.S. It is btw unfortunate that the lemma is missing from the Online Etymology Dictionary which is usually much more analytical, elaborative in its claims...

We are not here to emend reliable sources, but to compile them. If you think the OED wrong or misleading, write them. I have done so, and they have corrected themselves. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:48, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

So what exactly does the OED (latest/recent edition) read? On both chrismon and christogram, that is. It would perhaps help if it were a verbatim quotation, also stating the edition's number (so that it could be used as a source) .
P.S.It's trivial, yet: While no original research etc is a sound principle for Wikipedia, doing so 100%, is to say the least impossible (excluding perhaps clear plagiarism) and at least imo pointless... To write something, at least something of essence, one needs both a lot of info and critical thinking that inter alia requires selection of sources... An encyclopaedia --yes even Wikipedia-- is not just a list or put in another way, forming, chosing, selecting which list to do based on which list of sources based on which list of parts from each source is itself an act of original research; OK, most of the time it's not that original, yet... ;-)
P.P.S.Writing to them is an interesting thought; Hmmm... Thanatos|talk|contributions 00:49, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

"Etymology: medieval Latin, < Chris(tus + mon(ogramma." OED Online, etymology quoted in full. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:57, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Crow?

I haven't been able to find any validation of the inclusion of a crow, in any form, as a symbol for Christ, as given in the cited work. Sources can be wrong, and I think this one is. A descending dove is a common Christian symbol, as is a crown, but a "crow, descending down" is something I haven't found in any source but the one.Dismalscholar (talk) 07:53, 16 December 2014 (UTC)