Hopefully it's safe and enjoyable, spent with family and/or those close to you. And at least a bit of cue-sports tossed in!
Have a Merry ( pool-ish ) Christmas
- Thread starter Michael Andros
- Start date
Merry Christmas to all az members, all the best.
Petros Andrikopoulos
President HPBU
(Hellenic Pocket Billiard Union)
Petros Andrikopoulos
President HPBU
(Hellenic Pocket Billiard Union)
So rest you merry this season, and enjoy your jingle belling, mistletoeing, and trolling. 
I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Belated Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, Happy Kwanzaa, and Seasons Greetings.
Here's a cute explanation of punctuation of Christmas songs. :grin-square:
1. Round yon virgin.
The "round" in "Silent Night" might call up imagery of the soft, maternal kind, but in the phrase "round yon virgin," it simply means "around." "Yon" is an antiquated word for "that one" or "over there." It should be understood in the context "all is calm, all is bright round yon virgin mother and child." "Everything is calm and bright around that virgin mother over there and her child." In technical terms, "round yon virgin mother and child" is a prepositional phrase.
2. Troll the ancient yuletide carol.
Trolling a carol might sound like some obnoxious attempt to undermine it, but it's actually a great way to get in the holiday spirit. One of the meanings of "troll," in use since the 16th century, is "to sing in a full, rolling voice; to chant merrily or jovially." I guess that was pre-Internet days. It's related to the sense of rolling, or passing around, and probably came to be used to mean singing because of rounds, where the melody is passed from one person to the next. The modern, obnoxious sense of troll comes from a much later importation from Scandinavian mythology. People have increasingly been changing this line to "toll the ancient Yuletide carol" (now over 17,000 hits on Google).
3. The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head.
"Away in a manger, no crib for a bed / The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head." This line is a perfect storm of lay/lie confusion. The correct form here is "laid," but it often gets changed to "lay," and with good reason. "Laid" is the past tense of "lay," which should be used here because the little Lord Jesus isn't simply reposing (lying), but setting something down (laying), namely, his head. As a practical matter, both "lay" and "laid" sound exactly the same in this context. So you can fudge it when you sing it. Just be careful how you transcribe it.
4. You better watch out, you better not cry.
That's right, Santa Claus is coming to town, so you better watch out. Or is it "you'd better watch out?" Many sources advise that the proper form is "you'd better" because the construction comes from "you had better," and it doesn't make sense without the "had." The problem is, it doesn't make much sense with the "had" either, if you want to do a picky word-by-word breakdown.
5. With the kids jingle belling and mistletoeing.
There is a lot of verbing going on in "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." The practice of turning nouns into verbs is as old as English itself. Many verbs started when someone decided to use a noun to stand for some verbal notion related to that noun. First, we had "hammer," and from that we made "hammering." First, we had "message," and now we have "messaging." So verbs for "ringing jingle bells" or "kissing under the mistletoe" aren't so strange at all. At least no more strange than "gifting" or "dialoguing." This happens a lot in verbatim transcription.
6. God rest you merry, gentlemen.
Notice the comma placement there? The gentlemen in this phrase are not necessarily taken to be merry already. It's not "Hey, you! You merry gentlemen! God rest you!" It's "Hey, you gentlemen over there! May God rest you merry!" In Shakespeare's time, "rest you merry" was a way to express good wishes, to say something like "peace and happiness to you." Other versions were "rest you fair" or "rest you happy." It came from a sense of "rest" meaning "be at ease," which we still use in the phrase "rest assured." In "God rest you merry," "you" is the object of "rest," so when people make the song sound more old-timey by substituting "ye" for "you," they are messing up the original grammar because "ye" was the subject form.
I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Belated Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, Happy Kwanzaa, and Seasons Greetings.
Here's a cute explanation of punctuation of Christmas songs. :grin-square:
1. Round yon virgin.
The "round" in "Silent Night" might call up imagery of the soft, maternal kind, but in the phrase "round yon virgin," it simply means "around." "Yon" is an antiquated word for "that one" or "over there." It should be understood in the context "all is calm, all is bright round yon virgin mother and child." "Everything is calm and bright around that virgin mother over there and her child." In technical terms, "round yon virgin mother and child" is a prepositional phrase.
2. Troll the ancient yuletide carol.
Trolling a carol might sound like some obnoxious attempt to undermine it, but it's actually a great way to get in the holiday spirit. One of the meanings of "troll," in use since the 16th century, is "to sing in a full, rolling voice; to chant merrily or jovially." I guess that was pre-Internet days. It's related to the sense of rolling, or passing around, and probably came to be used to mean singing because of rounds, where the melody is passed from one person to the next. The modern, obnoxious sense of troll comes from a much later importation from Scandinavian mythology. People have increasingly been changing this line to "toll the ancient Yuletide carol" (now over 17,000 hits on Google).
3. The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head.
"Away in a manger, no crib for a bed / The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head." This line is a perfect storm of lay/lie confusion. The correct form here is "laid," but it often gets changed to "lay," and with good reason. "Laid" is the past tense of "lay," which should be used here because the little Lord Jesus isn't simply reposing (lying), but setting something down (laying), namely, his head. As a practical matter, both "lay" and "laid" sound exactly the same in this context. So you can fudge it when you sing it. Just be careful how you transcribe it.
4. You better watch out, you better not cry.
That's right, Santa Claus is coming to town, so you better watch out. Or is it "you'd better watch out?" Many sources advise that the proper form is "you'd better" because the construction comes from "you had better," and it doesn't make sense without the "had." The problem is, it doesn't make much sense with the "had" either, if you want to do a picky word-by-word breakdown.
5. With the kids jingle belling and mistletoeing.
There is a lot of verbing going on in "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." The practice of turning nouns into verbs is as old as English itself. Many verbs started when someone decided to use a noun to stand for some verbal notion related to that noun. First, we had "hammer," and from that we made "hammering." First, we had "message," and now we have "messaging." So verbs for "ringing jingle bells" or "kissing under the mistletoe" aren't so strange at all. At least no more strange than "gifting" or "dialoguing." This happens a lot in verbatim transcription.
6. God rest you merry, gentlemen.
Notice the comma placement there? The gentlemen in this phrase are not necessarily taken to be merry already. It's not "Hey, you! You merry gentlemen! God rest you!" It's "Hey, you gentlemen over there! May God rest you merry!" In Shakespeare's time, "rest you merry" was a way to express good wishes, to say something like "peace and happiness to you." Other versions were "rest you fair" or "rest you happy." It came from a sense of "rest" meaning "be at ease," which we still use in the phrase "rest assured." In "God rest you merry," "you" is the object of "rest," so when people make the song sound more old-timey by substituting "ye" for "you," they are messing up the original grammar because "ye" was the subject form.
Attachments
Thanks, PT, an you as well. Have a great day.
Thanks, Jimmy. Stick around, there's more where *that* came from! :grin:
So rest you merry this season, and enjoy your jingle belling, mistletoeing, and trolling.
I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Belated Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, Happy Kwanzaa, and Seasons Greetings.
Here's a cute explanation of punctuation of Christmas songs. :grin-square:
1. Round yon virgin.
The "round" in "Silent Night" might call up imagery of the soft, maternal kind, but in the phrase "round yon virgin," it simply means "around." "Yon" is an antiquated word for "that one" or "over there." It should be understood in the context "all is calm, all is bright round yon virgin mother and child." "Everything is calm and bright around that virgin mother over there and her child." In technical terms, "round yon virgin mother and child" is a prepositional phrase.
2. Troll the ancient yuletide carol.
Trolling a carol might sound like some obnoxious attempt to undermine it, but it's actually a great way to get in the holiday spirit. One of the meanings of "troll," in use since the 16th century, is "to sing in a full, rolling voice; to chant merrily or jovially." I guess that was pre-Internet days. It's related to the sense of rolling, or passing around, and probably came to be used to mean singing because of rounds, where the melody is passed from one person to the next. The modern, obnoxious sense of troll comes from a much later importation from Scandinavian mythology. People have increasingly been changing this line to "toll the ancient Yuletide carol" (now over 17,000 hits on Google).
3. The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head.
"Away in a manger, no crib for a bed / The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head." This line is a perfect storm of lay/lie confusion. The correct form here is "laid," but it often gets changed to "lay," and with good reason. "Laid" is the past tense of "lay," which should be used here because the little Lord Jesus isn't simply reposing (lying), but setting something down (laying), namely, his head. As a practical matter, both "lay" and "laid" sound exactly the same in this context. So you can fudge it when you sing it. Just be careful how you transcribe it.
4. You better watch out, you better not cry.
That's right, Santa Claus is coming to town, so you better watch out. Or is it "you'd better watch out?" Many sources advise that the proper form is "you'd better" because the construction comes from "you had better," and it doesn't make sense without the "had." The problem is, it doesn't make much sense with the "had" either, if you want to do a picky word-by-word breakdown.
5. With the kids jingle belling and mistletoeing.
There is a lot of verbing going on in "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." The practice of turning nouns into verbs is as old as English itself. Many verbs started when someone decided to use a noun to stand for some verbal notion related to that noun. First, we had "hammer," and from that we made "hammering." First, we had "message," and now we have "messaging." So verbs for "ringing jingle bells" or "kissing under the mistletoe" aren't so strange at all. At least no more strange than "gifting" or "dialoguing." This happens a lot in verbatim transcription.
6. God rest you merry, gentlemen.
Notice the comma placement there? The gentlemen in this phrase are not necessarily taken to be merry already. It's not "Hey, you! You merry gentlemen! God rest you!" It's "Hey, you gentlemen over there! May God rest you merry!" In Shakespeare's time, "rest you merry" was a way to express good wishes, to say something like "peace and happiness to you." Other versions were "rest you fair" or "rest you happy." It came from a sense of "rest" meaning "be at ease," which we still use in the phrase "rest assured." In "God rest you merry," "you" is the object of "rest," so when people make the song sound more old-timey by substituting "ye" for "you," they are messing up the original grammar because "ye" was the subject form.
Such interesting Christmas literary tid-bits, Jam, thank you! Hoping your and Keith's day and coming New Year are great.
Merry Christmas Mike.
You too, Z... and your entire family as well.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours!
Trent from Toledo
Trent from Toledo
Absolutely a Merry Christmas to all and have a great 2019 Pool year. :happydance:
