Two years ago, I did a post on the difference between “merry Christmas” and “happy Christmas.” (It has mainly to do, I argued, with the difference between American English, which tends to retain older constructions, such as “merry,” and British English, which favors “happy,” supposedly due to Victorian-era qualms against carousing at Christmas, which “merry” suggested.)
Anyway, if you google this topic, my post will be the first one listed. For the last few days, thousands of people from around the world who have been wondering abut this odd English usage have done that search and have come to my post. My readership statistics have skyrocketed.
Most of those readers have found the information they were looking for and won’t be back. For those of you who are coming back, welcome.
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