On Dec 24, 2005, at 15:24, Jane Bawn wrote:
Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays* to everyone and I hope you all have a
happy
time.
*delete as applicable :-)
(polically incorrect) Jane
Portchester UK
<VBG> Always knew you were a "good un", Jane :) Never had much patience
with all the current hoopla about the religious/non religious
expressions. All that's required is a modicum of tolerance on both
sides, as far as I'm concerned.
Peculiarly enough... In Polish, the traditional formula, in full, is:
Merry Holidays of God's Birth (Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia). So
it's very easy for us to cut it down to just "Merry Holidays" and both
believers and non-believers do it; while you can find cards which say
one thing rather than the other (and either kind is likely to have "i
szczesliwego Nowego Roku"-"and a happy New Year" tacked on), there are
more of the the abbreviated kind, even when accompanying a religious
picture. That's true even in the - now openly - Catholic country; can't
even blame it only on the Communist system <g> As a result, I never
had any trouble saying either "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays",
having grown up with "Merry Holidays".
I only wish I had "seen" how Polish seems to combine the two in comfort
when I was writing my masters thesis 30 yrs ago :) It had a fancy
title of "Social and cultural elements in teaching English as a foreign
language" and dealt mostly with how closely the culture of a society
influences its language and how, in turn, the language influences one's
perception of the world (had fun with two sets of Polish textbooks, one
set of Russian, two UK and one US). "Merry Holidays" would have fitted
into the thesis perfectly. OTOH, I'm not sure that "Happy Holidays" had
been "invented" 30 yrs ago; certainly, I don't remember seeing it in
either US or UK textbooks for teaching ESL...
Merry Holidays everyone :)
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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