All you need to know about the meaning of Christmas

Posted on 2011/12/22 , tagged as

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Mark Forsyth, author of Amazon.co.uk’s number 1 bestseller [stop bragging – ed] The Etymologicon, writes today in the Scotsman about the origins of festive words.

Mark reveals that turkeys have nothing directly to do with Turkey, Advent starts in late November, Xmas is the proper spelling of Christmas and much more…

Today’s episode of his book on BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week looks at the link between Jack Robinson, Thomas Derrick and Dr Guillotin. You can listen again to all of the episodes for seven days after broadcast here.