Everyone who reads English, and especially everyone who writes English, knows the importance of a properly placed comma.
Several years ago I picked up a book on the topic of punctuation, very cleverly titled Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The cover shows two panda bears. One of them is on a bamboo ladder leaning against the title, and he is painting out the comma.
The other panda bear is in the bottom right of the cover, carrying a pistol and walking out of the scene.
See how important that comma is? Without it the book might be a statement about panda bears, who eat shoots and leaves. With it you have a very different story.
Which brings us to the title of this article — the first line of a very well known but not very well understood Christmas carol.
Two errors are often made with this carol. The first is to misplace the comma, moving it back a word, like this: God rest you, merry Gentlemen. So “merry” becomes an adjective for gentlemen.
The second is to substitute “ye” for “you,” which was done in a version of the carol printed in 1760. According to the experts, “ye” is a subjective pronoun and therefore would not be correct. “You” is an objective pronoun (the object of the action in the verb), and would be correct. (Most of ye probably don’t care much about that.)
So what does “rest you merry” mean?
The phrase asks God to take action. It is one of the finest Christmas wishes ever written, I think.
And it spills over into something we have all said, “Merry Christmas!”
Shakespeare used it
Written around 1593, Romeo and Juliet is still one of the best known works in the English language. I am sorry to say that I have not read much Shakespeare, though I have seen a few Shakespeare plays and movies made from Shakespeare’s works.
Still, take it from me that the phrase “rest you merry” appears in Romeo and Juliet. In fact the Oxford English Dictionary (commonly called the OED) has a reference to the phrase “God rest you merry” from 1534. It is not new.
But by the late 1700’s, the phrase rest you had begun to lose the meaning it held earlier, which was to grant peace. So it was that Dickens replaced “rest” in his use of the phrase (in A Christmas Carol) with “bless.”
The original phrase in the lyric, “sit yo’ merry,” changed to “rest you merry,” means May God “give you peace and happiness.”
Knowing that, we might even think the gentlemen being addressed were burdened by the cares of the world. And so the prayer in the lyric was that God would grant them peace, which is often a rest from cares, resulting in happiness.
The cares of Christmas
Many people, even with nothing more going on than Christmas, are beset by the cares of the season.
We may have some days off from work, but we have gifts to buy, meals to plan, greetings to prepare and send, and the list goes on. Holidays are one of the most stressful times of the year because of that.
But they are also among the most stressful because — and this is especially true of Christmas — they highlight family. If a family member is missing, especially for the first time, emotions are evoked without effort, or even desire.
Sometimes it is the other way around. Society expects us to be with family, and we don’t want to be with family. We do it anyway, and the results are sometimes successful. Sometimes they are not.
Yes, there is often great joy in the gathering of family at Christmas. Even if someone is missing, many families embrace that. A soldier serving overseas will be home next year. The loved one that has passed from this earth is now in heaven, and will be seen again there. Memories really can be precious.
But that is not so with every family, or every person. Sadness will make some say, “I’m skipping Christmas.” I know people who feel like that, and I feel for them.
Cares at Christmas are not new. That is part of the beauty of this great old carol: “God rest you merry, Gentlemen, let nothing you dismay….”
“Merry Christmas!”
“Bah! Humbug!”
When you wish someone a Merry Christmas, they might think you are asking them to celebrate the birth of Jesus. In your heart, you might be, but there is a meaning here that is applicable to even those who do not believe in Jesus.
You are saying, and I hope you will feel this in your words, “May you be happy during this time called Christmas.” Your spirit might even be saying, “God rest you merry this Christmas.” Because we could all use a little more peace in our lives, along with the happiness.
The phrase Merry Christmas goes back to the 16th century, but it became very popular in the 19th. Specifically it became popular because of a novella written by Charles Dickens. The full title is A Christmas Carol. In prose. Being a ghost story of Christmas.
It was published December 19, 1843.
Not only did it help make Merry Christmas a common greeting, it also introduced Bah! Humbug! Which I think is great fun, because Scrooge came around to Christmas.
A Christmas card
1843 was also the year of the first commercially sold Christmas cards. They were commissioned by Sir Henry Coles, and a few more than 2,000 were sold.
Mercifully, history does not record the first Christmas Letter. (But I admit that they can be fun.)
So allow me to make this our Christmas card to you all:
We wish you a very Merry Christmas! May it be one of rest and rejoicing and remembering the birth of Jesus. May your heart be filled with hope, and may the new year be amazing and bring you opportunities for great good!
God rest you merry, Ladies and Gentlemen.
The Do Good U team
God rest you merry, Gentlemen.
Everyone who reads English, and especially everyone who writes English, knows the importance of a properly placed comma.
Several years ago I picked up a book on the topic of punctuation, very cleverly titled Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The cover shows two panda bears. One of them is on a bamboo ladder leaning against the title, and he is painting out the comma.
The other panda bear is in the bottom right of the cover, carrying a pistol and walking out of the scene.
See how important that comma is? Without it the book might be a statement about panda bears, who eat shoots and leaves. With it you have a very different story.
Which brings us to the title of this article — the first line of a very well known but not very well understood Christmas carol.
Two errors are often made with this carol. The first is to misplace the comma, moving it back a word, like this: God rest you, merry Gentlemen. So “merry” becomes an adjective for gentlemen.
The second is to substitute “ye” for “you,” which was done in a version of the carol printed in 1760. According to the experts, “ye” is a subjective pronoun and therefore would not be correct. “You” is an objective pronoun (the object of the action in the verb), and would be correct. (Most of ye probably don’t care much about that.)
So what does “rest you merry” mean?
The phrase asks God to take action. It is one of the finest Christmas wishes ever written, I think.
And it spills over into something we have all said, “Merry Christmas!”
Shakespeare used it
Written around 1593, Romeo and Juliet is still one of the best known works in the English language. I am sorry to say that I have not read much Shakespeare, though I have seen a few Shakespeare plays and movies made from Shakespeare’s works.
Still, take it from me that the phrase “rest you merry” appears in Romeo and Juliet. In fact the Oxford English Dictionary (commonly called the OED) has a reference to the phrase “God rest you merry” from 1534. It is not new.
But by the late 1700’s, the phrase rest you had begun to lose the meaning it held earlier, which was to grant peace. So it was that Dickens replaced “rest” in his use of the phrase (in A Christmas Carol) with “bless.”
The original phrase in the lyric, “sit yo’ merry,” changed to “rest you merry,” means May God “give you peace and happiness.”
Knowing that, we might even think the gentlemen being addressed were burdened by the cares of the world. And so the prayer in the lyric was that God would grant them peace, which is often a rest from cares, resulting in happiness.
The cares of Christmas
Many people, even with nothing more going on than Christmas, are beset by the cares of the season.
We may have some days off from work, but we have gifts to buy, meals to plan, greetings to prepare and send, and the list goes on. Holidays are one of the most stressful times of the year because of that.
But they are also among the most stressful because — and this is especially true of Christmas — they highlight family. If a family member is missing, especially for the first time, emotions are evoked without effort, or even desire.
Sometimes it is the other way around. Society expects us to be with family, and we don’t want to be with family. We do it anyway, and the results are sometimes successful. Sometimes they are not.
Yes, there is often great joy in the gathering of family at Christmas. Even if someone is missing, many families embrace that. A soldier serving overseas will be home next year. The loved one that has passed from this earth is now in heaven, and will be seen again there. Memories really can be precious.
But that is not so with every family, or every person. Sadness will make some say, “I’m skipping Christmas.” I know people who feel like that, and I feel for them.
Cares at Christmas are not new. That is part of the beauty of this great old carol: “God rest you merry, Gentlemen, let nothing you dismay….”
“Merry Christmas!”
“Bah! Humbug!”
When you wish someone a Merry Christmas, they might think you are asking them to celebrate the birth of Jesus. In your heart, you might be, but there is a meaning here that is applicable to even those who do not believe in Jesus.
You are saying, and I hope you will feel this in your words, “May you be happy during this time called Christmas.” Your spirit might even be saying, “God rest you merry this Christmas.” Because we could all use a little more peace in our lives, along with the happiness.
The phrase Merry Christmas goes back to the 16th century, but it became very popular in the 19th. Specifically it became popular because of a novella written by Charles Dickens. The full title is A Christmas Carol. In prose. Being a ghost story of Christmas.
It was published December 19, 1843.
Not only did it help make Merry Christmas a common greeting, it also introduced Bah! Humbug! Which I think is great fun, because Scrooge came around to Christmas.
A Christmas card
1843 was also the year of the first commercially sold Christmas cards. They were commissioned by Sir Henry Coles, and a few more than 2,000 were sold.
Mercifully, history does not record the first Christmas Letter. (But I admit that they can be fun.)
So allow me to make this our Christmas card to you all:
We wish you a very Merry Christmas! May it be one of rest and rejoicing and remembering the birth of Jesus. May your heart be filled with hope, and may the new year be amazing and bring you opportunities for great good!
God rest you merry, Ladies and Gentlemen.
The Do Good U team
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