Those of you who'd like to replace "Merry Christmas" with something less religious might want to give it a second thought:
The dispute makes no objective sense, of course. "Holiday" means "holy day."
Those of you who'd like to replace "Merry Christmas" with something less religious might want to give it a second thought:
The dispute makes no objective sense, of course. "Holiday" means "holy day."
Comments
The silliest example of this substitution I've seen lately appears in the new Honda TV ad. A group of folks are singing, to the tune of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," "We Wish You a Happy Holiday."
As a writer who has done some advertising work, I know Honda has made a tactical blunder. By choosing a song featuring Christmas in the lyrics and altering it, they've called attention to their anti-Christmas activism in a way that I think will turn off potential customers.
I have been joking recently that if this trend were to keep up (which it won't; the trend will fizzle) we'd wind up watching "A Charlie Brown Season" and "How the Grinch Stole a Holiday."
Now that we've been reminded that holiday is a contraction of holy day, I guess I'll have to retitle that last one. Maybe "How the Grinch Stole Some Gifts but Whoville Collected on Their Credit Card Insurance and Replaced Everything during January Clearance."