Tag: christmas

12.9.2023 – God rest you merry!

God rest you merry
qualifying the object
mispunctuated

“God rest you merry, sir.” so says William to Touchstone in As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 1 by Big Bill.

That is how the first line of the song by the same name should read.

God rest you merry, Gentleman.

Kind of like saying, GO BLUE, Gentleman.

We are not saying God Rest You, Merry Gentleman, in the same way we would not be saying, GO, Blue Gentleman.

Wikipedia has much to say on the subject.

The historic meaning of the phrase “God rest you merry” is ‘may God grant you peace and happiness’; the Oxford English Dictionary records uses of this phrase from 1534 onwards. It appears in Shakespeare’s play As You Like It and the phrase “rest you merry” appears in Romeo and Juliet; both plays date from the 1590s.

The transitive use of the verb rest in the sense “to keep, cause to continue, to remain” is typical of 16th- to 17th-century language.

However, in the present day, merry is often misinterpreted as an adjective modifying gentlemen.

Etymonline.com notes that the first line “often is mispunctuated” as “God rest you, merry gentlemen” because in contemporary language, rest has lost its use “with a predicate adjective following and qualifying the object” (Century Dictionary).

This is the case already in the 1775 variant, and is also reflected by Dickens’s replacement of the verb rest by bless in A Christmas Carol.

How often do we get to use that wonderful phrase, often is mispunctuated.

And don’t lets leave out Ye and You.

Again Wikipedia, “Some variants give the pronoun in the first line as ye instead of you, in a pseudo-archaism. In fact, ye would never have been correct, because ye is a subjective (nominative) pronoun only, never an objective (accusative) pronoun.“

How will I ever sing this Christmas Carol again?

In truth I can’t wait to pass by some choral group singing outside next to a Salvation Army Red Bucket and hear them sing, “God Rest YE Merry Gentleman.”

I will have to get their attention and stop their singing so I can say that while I appreciate their effort at a pseudo-archaism, they cannot sing YE because use of the word is not correct, because ye is a subjective (nominative) pronoun only, never an objective (accusative) pronoun.

God rest you merry, y’all!

12.5.2023 – comes quiet stirring

comes quiet stirring
a vast pulsating music
the Sun delivered

There is a neighborhood where we like to walk near our house where this group of about a half dozen families like to decorate their homes for Halloween and Christmas.

Most years it seems to be a benign competition.

This year, somehow, someway, the families involved got together and coordinated their efforts.

Each house went all out as usual.

Decorating starts before Thanksgiving and by the long weekend giving thanks, that end of the street glows.

I cannot imagine how many hours and dollars are invested in these displays.

The amount of time alone needed to put it all together would stop me from even thinking of entering the competition of individual home decoration.

Then, to show their bond of community they turned the sidewalk that spans this group of houses into one long tunnel of light.

Every 10 feet or so of sidewalk has a 7 foot high hoop of PCP pipe that is wrapped in lights.

Each hoop is connected with extension cords to the next hoop.

You can walk the length the block under an arbor of Christmas lights.

Don’t get me wrong.

It is impossible to walk down this sidewalk, under the lights, and not feel better, a little happier for doing it, for being there.

You can’t look at this lights from across the pond, with the water reflecting the lights, and not feel better, a little happier for doing it, for being there.

I cannot imagine the time and human effort that its required to put on such a show.

As I drove to work this morning the sun was about to come up out of the Atlantic Ocean.

Far into the vast the mist grows dim,
A deep and holy silence broods around,
Fire burns beyond the vaporous rim,
And crystal-like the dew bestrews the ground.

The last laggard star has fled the glowing sky,
Comes a quiet stirring and a gentle light,
A vast pulsating music, throbbing harmony,
Beyond the Sun delivered from the gloom of night!*

No human effort required.

No extension cords.

No PCP pipe.

The earth revolves daily and somewhere in the world, the Sun is coming up.

You feel better, a little happier for seeing it, for being there.

*The poem is Dawn by WH Auden.