Hark!
Merry Christmas! As I write this, we're just a few hours away from Santa's yearly visit and Christmas tunes have been playing 'round the clock in every shop and public venue for months now. I'm kind of indifferent to Christmas music; I have my favorites and I have several I could live without ever hearing again, but, as happens every year, looking at Christmas music through the eyes of my students highlights just how weird and odd it can be (from a linguistic point of view). This week, we'll look at some examples of the stranger words and phrases we come across every year without really realizing it.
To be clear, the only Christmas song I will sing is this one. (NSFW Language warning.)
Let's start with the simple word "O". We see this in lots of different carols - O Come All Ye Faithful, O Holy Night, O Come O Come Emmanuel, and O Little Town of Bethlehem to name just a few. But what does O actually mean when used in this context? O is defined by Mirriam-Webster as an interjection (itself an interruption or exclamation) and as an alternate spelling of "oh." In other words, it doesn't really mean anything, it instead signals that the person who is speaking is doing so with strong emotion - exultation and reverence in the cases of O Come All Ye Faithful and O Holy Night - or with an implicit imploration, as in O Come O Come Emmanual.
Speaking of O Come All Ye Faithful, what does "ye" mean? Most of us understand from context that ye means you; should you find you need to explain this to a student, ye is the plural form of thou, which is the archaic form of the singular you.
Silent Night's lyric "round yon virgin mother and child," provides a similar case of having to explain a word as a shorter version of a word we don't use every day, but that might be known: yon is short for yonder, which means that person or place over there. Thus, the singer is directing the listeners' attention to that woman over there with her child.
But what about Deck the Halls, which uses familiar words in an unfamiliar context: Don we now our gay apparel, troll the ancient yuletide carol. For a lot of native English speakers, gay to mean fun, carefree, or happy may not be such a great linguistic leap, but troll? I, for one, knew the word troll to mean a large, mean mythical being made out of rock, or, as a verb, to harass someone, probably online. But, turns out, troll can mean to sing in a really loud, clear voice. Who knew?
The best version of the best Christmas song ever.
There are loads of other examples, but the point is - Christmas music is full of odd, or old-fashioned words and turns of phrase that can be difficult to take out of a Christmas context or to explain to non-native speakers what, exactly, they mean. But, of course, the flip side to this is true as well. As I alluded to with Deck the Halls, things can be confusing for native speakers (and teachers) too. I started this week's essay with the idea that hark (as in, the Herald Angels Sing) is an outdated word used only in the Christmas carol until I actually looked up the definition and Mirriam-Webster helpfully gave example sentences using the word dating all the way back to...2019. In other words, "hark" is still a perfectly valid word, much to my surprise.
So, if you find yourself ready and set to go caroling with a bunch of exchange students, new neighbors from another country, or anyone else who may not be all that great with English, take a minute to read up on some of the more puzzling words from your favorite carols so everyone can readily understand what you're harkening on about.
Origin:
From Etymology Online:
hark (v.)
c. 1200, from Old English *heorcian "to hearken, listen," perhaps an intensive form from base of hieran (see hear).
Used as a hunting cry to call attention. To hark back (1817) originally referred to hounds returning along a track when the scent has been lost, till they find it again (1814). Related: Harked; harking.
Notable Events of 1739:
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Sidetracks:
I have a new favorite podcast: Cautionary Tales by Tim Harford wherein Harford makes surprising connections between people and events to find hidden lessons about the world and how it works. The most recent episode (as of this writing) connects two things I already knew about - Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies and David Bowie's Berlin trilogy with a rainy night in Berlin in 1975 when a jazz pianist had to play on a broken piano. It's fascinating and, if you're reading this newsletter, probably the sort of thing you'd enjoy listening to.
In light of that, and continuing with the best of 2019, here are some new and/or new-to-me podcasts I enjoyed this year:
Next time: Hark! That's it. Stay strong, stay curious. Learn something.