Winterval is the new BuzzWord this week on Macmillan Dictionary.
The term, coined in 1998, refers to the period of festivities which takes place in the middle of winter, including Christmas and other religious or secular festivals like Jewish Hanukkah, Hindu Diwali and pagan festivals such as Yule.
To find out more about the word, see these links:
UK Winterval gets frosty reception
Where it all started …
Welcome to Winterval
Political correctness and Christmas
WE’RE NOT GOING TO CALL CHRISTMAS WINTERVALL!!!!!
You can join this Facebook group if you’re not a fan of Winterval replacing Christmas.
Have you burnt your mince pies or forgotten to baste your turkey? Well, things could have been a lot worse …
Macmillan Dictionary Blog wishes you a Merry Christmas!
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
May I suggest then for those of us in the Southern hemisphere to have a Summerval? How did it go…-you can please some of the people some of the time…?
Anyway -whatever we call it, I think it’s a great time of the year! Joining the well-wishing if I may…
This guy posted a link on our blog about the original argument over the term Winterval in Birmingham and makes lots of interesting observations about how the term came about and some of the agendas at work.
Like loads of things to do with “PC gone mad”, the right wing media’s coverage of the issue is horribly distorted and designed to make the PC movement look like a bunch of crazed killjoys and self-hating, unpatriotic ne’erdowells. More worrying, I think, is the readiness of lots of people to believe every story about such things.
Mark Pack’s post about Winterval is here (sorry, should have added it above)