Happy Easter !: Upper or lower case? Singular or plural?

In this age of greetings and good wishes, there are a few keys to avoiding making mistakes. Nowadays there are still hesitations about spelling and capital letter and the tiny they must mistreat journalists. Yes, we never write “Friday” with a capital letter – days of the week are capitalized – unless it is Good Friday. The RAE sends editorial recommendations for these special dates. Let’s take this opportunity to review some of them and make some curiosities.

// Christmas and Father Christmas: frequent doubts when wishing for good omens

They are capitalized

We can solve the problem with a few examples which summarize the usual liturgical vocabulary at the moment. “Holy Week is preceded by Lent which begins on Ash Wednesday after the carnival holidays.” It is curious to see the days of the week with a capital letter, they wear it because they correspond to religious dates: Good Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday (day on which the resurrection of Christ is celebrated). Concerning the singular and the plural forms “Easter“and”Easter“, Both are valid. The curious fact is that in Spain the plural is used to wish good omens to the holiday season – when the term “Christmas” is also used and the singular form is reserved for Easter, which closes Holy Week. . The origin of the term refers to the Hebrew “pesahWhich commemorates the liberation of the Hebrew people from the slavery to which they were subjected in Egypt.

They go with lowercase

One of the most frequent doubts is presented by the word “dad“. Out of respect and tradition, it is often capitalized on. In the newspapers we read phrases like “Pope Francis has started his historic tour of Iraq”. Like other positions or titles, it should be written with tiny. There are different denominations to name the head of the Church: Pope, Holy Father, Grand Pontiff, all accompany a lowercase letter as determined by the spelling rules of the academies of the language by referring to the names that designate the titles of nobility, dignities and positions or jobs of any rank. The same happens with “king” or “president”, they don’t go with a capital letter even though we insist on writing it that way.

From eggs to rabbits

Buona Pasqua !, Happy Easter! and Happy Easter! In Italian, French and Spanish we use derivatives of the Latin word pasha-aeBut what about “Happy Easter”, the greeting in English? While on Easter Sunday, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Christ, who died on the cross to save the world from sin, in other cultures Easter is remembered, goddess of spring and fertility.

In the northern hemisphere, the date coincides with the spring equinox of March 21, time of renewal and joy. The hare or the rabbit These are representations that, like Easter eggs, are symbols of fertility, fortune and good wishes for the start of spring.

According to Jacob Grimm in his German mythology, the idea of ​​resurrection became anchored in the celebration of Ostara / Easter: “Ostara or Eastre seems to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of the rising light, a spectacle which brings joy and blessing, the meaning of which would have could be easily adapted for the day of the resurrection of the God of Christians ”.