Good Friday and Easter

Good Friday and Easter Good Friday and Easter Good Friday and Easter By Maeve Maddox Reader Elaine Peters wonders if the word Good in Good Friday has anything to do with the word God, pointing out that the English good-bye is a shortened version of the once common expression God be with ye. The word goodbye is the result of running words together until theyve dwindled into a compressed version of the original. The English words good and god, however, are not related. Both stem from Indo-European roots. The word god meaning deity, is thought to come from a word meaning that which is invoked. Or, It could come from a different Indo-European word meaning to pour as in the pouring of a libation. The word good, meaning having a desirable quality, comes from a Proto-Indo- European base word with the meaning to unite, be associated, suitable. Like the word nice, good can be used in so many contexts that it is probably a word to be avoided by careful writers. For example, good can have the following meanings: prosperous: He makes a good living. beneficial: Spinach is good for you. welcome: The doctor gave him good news. fertile: The land isnt very good in this area. attractive: Actors must have good looks. genuine: This money is not good. advantageous: I got a good deal on this couch. Among the many meanings of good are virtuous, moral, and wise. One of the meanings of the word holy is infinitely good. From such meanings come the expressions the Good Book and Good Friday. To call the day of the crucifixion of Jesus Good Friday could seem a little perverse, but seen from the perspective of Christian belief, the day marks the salvation of mankind and the triumph over death. For that reason it is called Good Friday in the Christian calendar. The Christian use of the word Easter for the religious celebration of the passion and death of Christ is one of those ironies of linguistic history. The word Easter derives from the name of an ancient Germanic goddess of fertility and sunrise, Austron. Her feast was celebrated at the spring equinox. Anglo-Saxon converts to Christianity adopted the name and, according to the Venerable Bede, some of the practices of the old worship for their Mass of the Resurrection as well. The word east derives from the same word as does the name of the goddess. The German word for Easter is similar: Ostern, but most European languages use words derived from Medieval Latin pascha: French: PÃ ¢ques Dutch: Pasen Italian: Pasque Spanish: Pascua Portuguese: Pscoa* Russian: nacxa [pass-kha]* (with thanks to Andre, Andriano, and Alexey) The Latin word come from a Hebrew word which passed into Aramaic as pasha and from there into Greek and Latin. William Tyndale, translating the Bible in 1530, translated Hebrew pesah as pass over. During the Middle English period, some writers used the word Pasche for Easter, but the pagan word is the one that has survived into modern English. Even though English speakers use Easter as the name of the festival, they do have an adjective, paschal, that has the meaning of or pertaining to Easter. One of my family traditions was the eating of the Paschal Egg on Easter morning. We cut one of our colored eggs, usually a purple one, into four pieces, one for each member of the family. I suppose that an Easter egg hunt could be referred to as a paschal event. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:20 Words with More Than One SpellingThe Possessive Apostrophe6 Foreign Expressions You Should Know

An Overview of Third-Wave Feminism

An Overview of Third-Wave Feminism What historians refer to as first-wave feminism arguably began in the late 18th century with the publication of Mary Wollstonecrafts Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and ended with the ratification of the Twentieth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protected a womans right to vote. First-wave feminism was concerned primarily with establishing, as a point of policy, that women are human beings and should not be treated like property. The Second Wave The second wave of feminism emerged in the wake of World War II, during which many women entered the workforce, and would have arguably ended with the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), had it been ratified. The central focus of the second wave was on total gender equality -   women as a group having the same social, political, legal, and economic rights that men have. Rebecca Walker and the Origins of Third-Wave Feminism Rebecca Walker, a 23-year-old, bisexual African-American woman born in Jackson, Mississippi, coined the term third-wave feminism in a 1992 essay. Walker is in many ways a living symbol of the way that second-wave feminism has historically failed to incorporate the voices of many young women, non-heterosexual women, and women of color. Women of Color Both first-wave and second-wave feminism represented movements that existed alongside, and at times in tension with, civil rights movements for people of color - a slight majority of whom happen to be women. But the struggle always seemed to be for the rights of white women, as represented by the womens liberation movement, and black men, as represented by the civil rights movement. Both movements, at times, could have been legitimately accused of relegating women of color to asterisk status. Lesbians, Bisexual Women, and Transgender Women For many second-wave feminists, non-heterosexual women were seen as an embarrassment to the movement. The great feminist activist Betty Friedan, for example, coined the term lavender menace in 1969 to refer to what she considered the harmful perception that feminists are lesbians. She later apologized for the remark, but it accurately reflected the insecurities of a movement that was still very heteronormative in many ways. Low-Income Women First- and second-wave feminism also tended to emphasize the rights and opportunities of middle-class women over poor and working-class women. The debate over abortion rights, for example, centers on laws that affect a womans right to choose an abortion - but economic circumstances, which generally play a more significant role in such decisions today, are not necessarily taken into account. If a woman has the legal right to terminate her pregnancy, but chooses to exercise that right because she cant afford to carry a pregnancy to term, is this really a scenario that protects reproductive rights? Women in the Developing World First- and second-wave feminism, as movements, were largely confined to industrialized nations. But third-wave feminism takes a global perspective - not by merely attempting to colonize developing nations with Western practices, but by empowering women to actualize change, to gain power and equality, within their own cultures and their own communities and with their own voices. A Generational Movement Some second-wave feminist activists have questioned the need for a third wave. Others, both inside and outside of the movement, disagree with respect to what the third wave represents. Even the general definition  provided above may not accurately describe the objectives of all third-wave feminists.But its important to realize that third-wave feminism is a generational term - it refers to how the feminist struggle manifests itself in the world today. Just as second-wave feminism represented the diverse and sometimes competing for interests of feminists who struggled together under the banner of womens liberation, third-wave feminism represents a generation that has begun with the achievements of the second wave. We can only hope that the third wave will be so successful as to necessitate the fourth wave - and we can only imagine what that fourth wave might look like.