What Is Merry?

FourPart · Post by **FourPart** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 11:04 pm

Just what is "Merry". Sure, we all know the Dictionary Definition. However, in reality it only ever seems to be used when relating either to Christmas or to being intoxicated.

High Threshold · Post by **High Threshold** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:24 am

FourPart;1470426 wrote: Just what is "Merry". Sure, we all know the Dictionary Definition. However, in reality it only ever seems to be used when relating either to Christmas or to being intoxicated.

I suspect “merry goes hand in hand with “gay: At one time in vogue, today not so much.

FourPart · Post by **FourPart** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 1:21 am

I was watching Trading Places last night & in the scene where he takes on the role of a Camaroonian Exchange Student & wishes a person a "Merry New Year", but is corrected to say a "Happy New Year" I was wondering, well what would be wrong with wishing someone a "Merry New Year". After all, it is perfectly correct, grammatically speaking. It just doesn't sound right.

High Threshold · Post by **High Threshold** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 1:31 am

FourPart;1470430 wrote: I was watching Trading Places last night & in the scene where he takes on the role of a Camaroonian Exchange Student & wishes a person a "Merry New Year", but is corrected to say a "Happy New Year" I was wondering, well what would be wrong with wishing someone a "Merry New Year". After all, it is perfectly correct, grammatically speaking. It just doesn't sound right.

Chair"person" didn't sound right the first time we heard it either.

FourPart · Post by **FourPart** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 1:45 am

I always feel Chairwoman sounds too much like Charwoman.

High Threshold · Post by **High Threshold** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 1:52 am

The Welsh pronunciation?

FourPart · Post by **FourPart** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 2:01 am

Not so sure where Welsh pronunciation comes into it, but Charwoman meaning a cleaner - a scrubber.

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 4:45 pm

Old King Cole was a merry old soul, but I don't remember him being inebriated.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 4:59 pm

I get called ' The Chair '.... ends all that he/she nonsence.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 5:02 pm

Merry | Define Merry at Dictionary.com

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 5:07 pm

Oscar Namechange;1470480 wrote: Merry | Define Merry at Dictionary.com

Didn't the thread begin with "Sure, we all know the Dictionary Definition"?

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 5:09 pm

FG;1470481 wrote: Didn't the thread begin with "Sure, we all know the Dictionary Definition"? You are being presumptuous In the extreme to assume and regard as fact that every member looking In does.

Posted by Fourpart

However, in reality it only ever seems to be used when relating either to Christmas or to being intoxicated.

My link gave more explanation than offered In the OP. Such as:

full of cheerfulness or gaiety; joyous in disposition or spirit:

a merry little man.

No mention there of being Intoxicated or relating to Christmas... That's why I posted It... Or could you not see that?

G#Gill · Post by **G#Gill** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 5:21 pm

High Threshold;1470432 wrote: Chair"person" didn't sound right the first time we heard it either.

What is wrong with calling the chairman, "chairman" whether male or female ? Do we say huwoman when a human being is female ? "PC" is just getting dafter !

Fuzzy · Post by **Fuzzy** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 5:52 pm

Oscar Namechange;1470479 wrote: I get called ' The Chair '.... ends all that he/she nonsence.

Why??? Do you have 4 legs?:yh_rotfl

sugarpuff · Post by **sugarpuff** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 6:09 pm

Fuzzy;1470484 wrote: Why??? Do you have 4 legs?:yh_rotfl

Could be worse.... they could have called you the stool ..:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 6:17 pm

Oscar Namechange;1470482 wrote: That's why I posted It... Or could you not see that?
All I saw was the total absence of discussion. Just the link. On the other hand, nothing about the post surprised me in the slightest.

High Threshold · Post by **High Threshold** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 9:58 pm

G#Gill;1470483 wrote: What is wrong with calling the chairman, "chairman" whether male or female ? Do we say huwoman when a human being is female ? "PC" is just getting dafter !

Sorry to be such a stickler Gill, but as with sea-going vessels the PC is feminine so it would have to be “daftesse I'm afraid.

Running up to the election of Maggie T. there was much speculation (as you recall) on whether we'd have to refer to her as “Prime Ministress.

FourPart · Post by **FourPart** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:15 pm

Oscar Namechange;1470480 wrote: Merry | Define Merry at Dictionary.com

Idioms

4.

make merry,

a. to be happy or festive:

The New Year's revelers were making merry in the ballroom.

As I said, although we know the dictionary version, it's never (or rarely, if you consider Old King Cole - drinking from his bowl) seems to be used otherwise.

Mind you, on the Wikipedia entry (Old King Cole - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) it does have this note:

In military cadence

The United States military also has a version in the form of a marching cadence, used from the 1980s into the present:

Old King Cole was a merry old soul

and a merry ol' soul was he, uh huh.

He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl

and he called for his privates three, uh huh.

Beer! Beer! Beer! cried the private.

Brave men are we

There's none so fair as they can compare

to the airborne infantry, uh huh.

to make fun of; ridicule:

b.The unthinking children made merry of the boy who had no shoes.

Oh Jolly-Ho, what!! Whoever "makes merry" of anything?

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 5:30 am

FourPart;1470498 wrote: (or rarely, if you consider Old King Cole - drinking from his bowl) No no, I think not - it's not that sort of bowl, the bowl mentioned in the verse is clearly, from the context, the bowl in which the King's Shag is stored prior to his smoking it. "Bowl" has the advantage over "jar" in that it rhymes with "soul", other than that it's a standard Blue and White porcelain tobacco jar, usually Dutch Delft, and every reputable household had something like it back when the song was first composed around 1720.

FourPart · Post by **FourPart** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 11:02 am

High Threshold;1470494 wrote: Sorry to be such a stickler Gill, but as with sea-going vessels the PC is feminine so it would have to be “daftesse I'm afraid.

I thought the Feminie of PC was WPC - as in "PC Plod, and his wife, WPC Plod".

Running up to the election of Maggie T. there was much speculation (as you recall) on whether we'd have to refer to her as “Prime Ministress.
Well, she was more masculine that any PM before, or since.

High Threshold · Post by **High Threshold** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 11:52 am

FourPart;1470522 wrote: Well, she was more masculine that any PM before, or since.

You are asking me to admit it, aren't you. :wah:

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 11:56 am

FourPart;1470426 wrote: Just what is "Merry". Sure, we all know the Dictionary Definition. However, in reality it only ever seems to be used when relating either to Christmas or to being intoxicated.

I have mused this over, perhaps I can offer a thought or two.

To be led a merry dance involves a complex succession of steps, it brings to mind Jane Austen's balls, Netherfield and the Regency in which all those present are familiar with the complications and take delight in them. Merry, I think, implies that busyness, that progression of events which must be performed properly to generate group satisfaction. I note that nobody can be merry in isolation and that the events over Christmas are generally pre-planned group activities, ideally suited to merriment.

High Threshold · Post by **High Threshold** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 12:09 pm

My goodness, there's a lot of discussion and disagreement on a subject that I would have thought would be clear-cut. It sort of reminds me of an old nursery rhyme that begins, “Merry, merry, quite contrary ¦ “

FourPart · Post by **FourPart** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 2:09 pm

Or another to do with Christmas:

"De Virgin Merry had a Baby Boy..."

High Threshold · Post by **High Threshold** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 2:29 pm

Correct me if I am wrong but I think it must be common knowledge that a boy's very first close-encounter in the English Public School is called “getting merried.

FourPart · Post by **FourPart** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 2:32 pm

As in "I'm getin' merried in the mornin'".

High Threshold · Post by **High Threshold** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 2:44 pm

Well, "I'm getting merried in the evening", actually.

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 3:18 pm

High Threshold;1470557 wrote: Correct me if I am wrong but I think it must be common knowledge that a boy's very first close-encounter in the English Public School is called “getting merried.

Previous generations in English Public Schools were sexualized at an earlier stage than their lower-class equivalents. These days the situation is very likely reversed.

High Threshold · Post by **High Threshold** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 5:19 pm

FG;1470575 wrote: Previous generations in English Public Schools were sexualized at an earlier stage than their lower-class equivalents. These days the situation is very likely reversed.

Buggery has taken to the streets, has it?

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 5:56 pm

High Threshold;1470582 wrote: Buggery has taken to the streets, has it?

Ever since it was made legal, yes.

High Threshold · Post by **High Threshold** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 6:20 pm

FG;1470586 wrote: Ever since it was made legal, yes.

There are those who would say that it is now compulsory.

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 7:42 pm

High Threshold;1470588 wrote: There are those who would say that it is now compulsory.

That's American prisons you're thinking of.