The posts of Christmas past

December 25, 2011 @ 6:41 am · Filed by under Administration

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While we wait for the posts of Christmas present to make their appearance, here are the posts of Christmas past:

2010: "Mele Kalikimaka";
2009: "No, Virginia";
2008: "Seven fishes"; "Happy Christmas";
2007: "One Christmas too long"; "Christmas and 'politically correct(ed)ness'", "'Tis the season", "The unkindness of strangers", "Victims and etymology", "Lexical repulsion", "Insert flap 'A' and throw away";
2006: "Merry … umm … Christmas, Will!", "Like, a Christmas gift card", "Happy tensing and coal in sex";
2005: "Christmas trees and holiday trees";
2004: "Talking animals: miracle or curse?", "A boxing day election — or not?"
2003: "'Twas the night before Christmas", "Same-sex Mrs. Santa: 'The semantics are confusing'"

December 25, 2011 @ 6:41 am · Filed by under Administration


5 Comments

  1. Victor Mair said,

    December 25, 2011 @ 1:29 pm

    It is my personal custom / quirk to refer to Christmas as Yuletide. Because I'm too busy writing a post about the KANJI of the year and stuffing my mouth with Xmas delicacies, I don't have time to go back and reread all the old Language Log posts listed by Mark to see whether the word Yuletide has already been discussed. If not, I'd welcome any and all comments and observations about it.

    BTW, I also believe in Santa Claus, AKA Saint Nick, but not in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

  2. Martha Rosen said,

    December 25, 2011 @ 2:14 pm

    Ludwig the Cat wakes up at midnight and speaks – in fact, recites – in today's "Arlo and Janis": http://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis?

  3. Aaron Toivo said,

    December 25, 2011 @ 4:27 pm

    I've always been fond of "Yuletide" for its retaining the original Germanic meaning of "tide", i.e. time. The German cognate (Zeit) still means time, but in English the word's meaning shifted to refer to the clocklike twice-daily ebb and flow of the sea. Except in "Yuletide".

  4. Victor Mair said,

    December 25, 2011 @ 9:11 pm

    Perhaps I should believe in Rudolph after all.

    Fascinating short video on Sami people, reindeer and Amanita muscaria mushrooms by the BBC:

    http://www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/page/446.html

  5. Xmun said,

    December 27, 2011 @ 1:37 am

    @Aaron Toivo
    There's also eventide, noontide, springtide (all perhaps a bit old-fashioned, but still current) plus Eastertide, Whitsuntide, etc. And Kipling used the word in this sense, or rather in a double sense, in his poem beginning "Have you news of my boy Jack? / Not this tide."

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