Why do we say "merry Christmas" while saying happy for all o

Post Reply New Topic

Yes, by the early 20th century, it had become archaic sounding. Britons did away with using the word even in the Christmas greeting at that time, whereas Americans kept the word in the greeting. Britons started saying "happy Christmas" instead of "merry Christmas" in the 20th century. However nowadays "merry Christmas" is starting to make a comeback in Briton due to American influence.

Etymology of "merry"

Etymology of "happy"




"merry" is the older word in English going back to Old English, whereas "happy" is a borrowing from Norse that occurred sometime in Middle English. At some point in Modern English, "happy" replaced "merry" as the preferred word.

What's even more archaic sounding than "merry" is "jolly". I mainly here "jolly" in reference to "the jolly Old Saint Nick".

I heard “jolly” quite a bit as a kid in the 60s-70s. And not just in reference to Santa Claus.

I heard “jolly” quite a bit as a kid in the 60s-70s. And not just in reference to Santa Claus.

I heard it used in movies taking place in the UK...as in the phrase “jolly good show.”

“A jolly good show” was used in the 20th century in the UK.

Sorry, Guys.

I only entered multiple posts because I wasn't sure if it went through.

Brits will even use "jolly" to mean...I don't know WHAT. To mean "extremely" I suppose.

Saw a film of a lecture by a British doctor who visited China under Mao in the seventies. He mentioned that life in the cities in China back then was "relatively easy" but in contrast "life in the country is jolly hard". Except that he caught himself just as "jolly" came out of his mouth and changed midsentence to "really hard".

Apparently in his native local (probably rural) dialect of British English folks say things like "jolly hard" . But to anyone from anywhere else in the Anglosphere, probably even in Britain, the construction sounds laughable because it would be a contradiction in terms in most dialects of English. And he was aware of that fact and had to consciously surpress his native dialect in that lecture.

But even folks who speak in standard upper class British English (received pronounciation as they themselves call it) use (to me) contradictory sounding expressions like "terribly beautiful", or "that didn't go terribly well".

When I was a kid in the 80's and heard people say "happy holidays", I thought they meant Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's day.

So far I haven't heard anyone say it's wrong to wish people a happy new year when not everyone celebrates it on Jan. 1st. What about the Lunar New Year? I also read April Fool's day originated because the New Year was switched from April 1st to Jan 1st, but some people forgot and said "Happy New Year!" in April, which must have made them look quite the fool.

Does anyone even know when exactly the Earth completes its orbit around the sun? Because that would technically make it a new year.

"Happy Holidays" covers the period from Christmas until New Years. There's no "Boxing Day" in the United States.

The reason why we have "leap year": One complete revolution of the Sun takes approximately 365 1/4 days.

The New Year begins exactly at 12:00 AM at the location within your time zone. It begins exactly at 12:00 AM Eastern Standard Time in New York City.