Theories of the Fall
posted by Robert Ahdieh
I, for one, have never found the familiar “Merry Christmas!” – as distinct from the new-fangled “Happy Holidays!” – to be especially offensive. Further, I don’t doubt that an excess of euphemism can be debilitating of meaningful human discourse.
Perhaps The Wall Street Journal goes too far, however, in offering (and defending!) the proposition that this shift in usage helps to explain the financial crisis.
November 21, 2008 at 4:55 am
Posted in: Current Events
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Responses (4)
Josh James - November 21, 2008 at 7:49 am
Hilarious! Anyone that thinks non-market forces are the impetus for saying, “Happy Holidays” in stead of, “Merry Christmas” is deluding themselves. No one in this or previous markets when the trend started wanted to offend potential customers,and, much more importantly, say “Happy Holidays” extends the buying season. You can start chiming in “Happy Holidays” right after Halloween now, even before in some stores” and folks don’t bat an eye. “Merry Christmas” in early November? Not so much. Retailers know, and I’m too guilty having worked in retail many years, that holidays make people buy more. Limiting yourself to Christmas constrains the time frame; being more generic means folks can hear the holiday blitz earlier and hopefully begin buying sooner and more prolifically.
It’s got nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the market. For a counterfactual imagine the market for a chain to advertise, “We say ‘Merry Christmas’!” Certainly folks would do it if they saw it as being to their advantage, yet no major retailer has made this move. Maybe they’re missing something, but I think they’re sticking with “Happy Holidays” for the reasons outlined above.
Matt - November 21, 2008 at 8:09 am
I suppose that no one rational is surprised to see silliness on the Wall Street Journal editorial page but we should be even less surprised to see this bit of nonsense since, as they say, “truth is the first casualty of war against Christmas.” (The fact that the last bit is often left out is just further evidence of the cunning of the anti-Christmas forces, I’d think.)
Bruce Boyden - November 21, 2008 at 11:39 am
Two words: In. Sane.
Frank - November 22, 2008 at 2:35 pm
somebody needs to watch the colbert xmas special:
“Guest star Toby Keith, toting an assault rifle, sings an original song about making “War on Christmas” that supposedly denounces the forced secularization of the holiday, but is also decorated with such sights as Christmas-tree bombs falling from Santa’s airplane and a smiley face painted on a nuclear mushroom cloud.”
and hear the song “Can I Interest You in Hannukah?”
from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112103579.html
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