Happy Easter, Which is Not Named After Ishtar, Okay?
Ishtarrific
Department of Awful Facebook Memes
Heritage Images/Getty
My unfavorite new Facebook meme is this bit of sillyness which has apparently been spotted everywhere from the feeds of my college friends to (allegedly) that of Richard Dawkins' Foundation for Reason and Science:
I immediately knew that this was a bit of nonsense for the simple reason that Easter is an English word. The Greeks and Romans called it Pascha, which is why Easter is Pasqua in Italian, Pascua in Spanish, and Paques in French. How exactly did the name of a Canaanite fertility goddess skip all the way to England from the Middle East without stopping in Rome or Byzantium?
Belle Jar has more:
Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.