Evening star., 1929-12-20
Ye Merrie Christmas
BY L. DU GARDE PEACH.
From the Landmark (organ of the English
Speaking Union).

From the Landmark (organ OF the English
Speaking Union).
have always thought that one of the
most extraordinary things about Christ
mas is the peculiar effect which it has
upon the spelling of the English Ian
guage. Heaven knows the spelling of
the English language-on whichever
side of the Atlantic you happen to be
spelling its peculiar enough at any
time, but at Christmas a sort of sea-
sonal rash seems to break out all over
it. Quite ordinary words take on an en-
tirely unfamiliar look. and the soberest
workaday vowels and consonants lose
their heads. 1t isn't serious; by New
Year day the worst is over, and the
symptoms quickly disappear, but it is a
sharp attack whilst it lasts.
OF course, it is all the fault Of We
goode olde tymes. They were so aw-
fully goode. There was bluff hearth
quite different then-and everybody
was so honest and so leal. am not
sure that quite know what leal means,
but the Anglo-Saxons were it; in fact,
it was one of their most outstanding
characteristics. Everybody knows that
an Anglo-SaXon who wasn't leal counted
for simply nothing; mean he hadn't
a friend or anything. and then where
was he? Anyhow, all these virtues OF
We goode olde tymes are just the thing
for Christmas. They go with wassail-
ing and boars' heads-you simply
couldn't look at a boar's head If you
weren't leal, for one thing-and mulled
sack and venison paste and so on.
And that is where the spelling comes
in. Because, besides being frightfully
goode and frightfully olde, ye goode
olde tymes were, above all, most fright
fully "ye." You couldn't get away from
it. aye" was the stamp, the hallmark
of the absolutely leal. No self-respect-
is nothing hearty and Merrie England
about word like that. For instance,
Hengist meeting Horsa never said,
"HoW's the wife?" No, he would say,
How looketh ye goode wyf?" You see
the difference? It's-well, it's leal,
that's all. And, mind you. Hengist and
Horsa were just about as leal a pair as
you could find; topping good chaps,
Hengist and Horsa were.
aye goode wyf." It really is Won
derful. You see?-you're thawing al
ready. You simply can't help yourself,
you're feeling more jovial and hearty
and-Why, for two pynneS you'd go
a-wassailing with anybody! And, be-
lieVe me, it is all done simply by that
one word, ''ye." At the mere sight of
it calm and ordinarily Unconditional citi-
zens burst into glad carols and fling
money to beggars. They do. more, they
even go into ye shoppe and buy ye blot
tynge paddle and send it to Aunt Mar
tina for Christmas present! Nothing
else could make them do that. 1t gets
hold of you. With sort of surging
rush all your Anglo-Saxon blood pourS
through your veins and you have SIM
ply got to do something to prove that
the spirit of dear old Hengist and HorSa
Sc V1ok< ,In%f Il he. I'd
tationS of everyday life are forgotten,
caution is flung to the winds; ye devyll
take ye expenSe-Christmas comes but
once year. Hurrah for Merrie Eng
land! Yoicks! Tally-ho! Zounds
If this were not serious pathological
article, definitely commissioned as such,
might be tempted to turn aside and
tell you few things about philologists.
They are a narrow-minded illiterate
lot, philologists are. There is nothing
glad about philologist. Why, if they
Christmas altogether, and Christmas
day would soon mean no more to any
body than Rogation day, whatever that
is. Why? Simply because they would
tell you that the word I'VE" isn't Eye"
at all, but "the," and that the letter
"y' is the modern way Of representing
an old Anglo-Saxon letter which was
pronounced like 9Th" What do you
think of thatP OF course it is all
nonsense, as I think have already
abundantly proved in this article, but
wet blankets these philologists are.
Where would Christmas be If you
didn't get cards with
Ye Olde, Olde wyshe
on them? Why, it Is unthinkable.
Oh i1YSf ilyn ~ Ifc-
NAL philologiSts to 60 and talk TO our
local grocer for few minutes. He
knows all about how Christmas ought
to be kept. For fifty weeks in the year
he has notice in his window which
says:
Currant Puddings
Is. per ID.
Mind you, am not complaining.
am quite sure that they are excellent
value for the money, but the offer
leaves me as cold as the puddings.
But at Christmas, about the neat
pyramids of white basins an alternative
card appears, which reads:
Ye Olde Englyshe Puddynge Shoppe
Chrystnasse puddynges two shyllinges
and SiXpence We pounde.
And, losing all Self-control, i'm
mediately dash into ye shoppe and buy
half-a-doz puddynges for ye sake of
HengiSt and HorSa. The puddingS are
the same, but what a difference in the
spirit in which they are offered! It is
worth the extra sixpence.
There is no getting away from it;
it is the spelling which does 1t. 4 If
Hengist and Horsa and Beowulf and
Grendel's mother and all those fas-
cinating people had known how to spell
properly, there might not BE any
Christmas at all today. That Is a
pretty solemn sort of thought. but it is
sound logic. You can say what you
like, but you might just as we'll try to
celebrate Christmas without mistletoe
as without ye olde Englyshe Spellynge.
So THIS Christmas I shall quaff
stoup of sack to the memory of Hengist
and Horsa. After all, they never had
much of Christmas themselves. All
they ever got were the snow and the
rain and the fogs and the mist and the
rheumatism. They didn't even have
the fun of knowing their spelling was
comic-in fact, the more think about
it, the more doubt whether either of
them could write at all.
But one thing remains: Ye merrie
ChrystmaSse and one thing is GER
tain: Ye determination of We Anglo
Saxon race to spell its language and
keep its Christmas how it pleaseS. And
SO, Ye Olde, Olde Wysshe to you, and
that's that.