Have Your Own Damn Self a Merry Little Christmas

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• 00:04

  From Booksmart Studios, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.

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  I'm John McWhorter.

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  And just listen to that.

• 00:27

  will be out of sight Have yourself a merry little Christmas Make the Yuletide gay From now on our troubles will be mild That's Frank Sinatra,

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  of course.

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  Notice how he doesn't strain as he goes up.

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  That's one of the joys of his voice.

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  In any case, that song, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,

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  originally from the film Meet Me in St. Louis,

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  and the music and lyrics are by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine,

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  is from my sweetie, whose favorite Christmas song that is,

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  but it's also a linguistics lesson, as she has taught me.

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  For example, why not just have a Merry Christmas?

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  What does have yourself a merry little Christmas mean?

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  Why the yourself?

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  We're going to have a lot of music in this one.

• 01:43

  We're going to do Lexicon Valley Old School.

• 01:46

  It's been...

• 01:47

  That long, folks.

• 01:48

  We're going into year eight with me hosting this show.

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