Irish news

A couple of weeks ago, our daughter left some Irish newspapers for me to read, because she remembered I have a fondness for their writing style. For instance, I love their weather forecasts: “It will be cloudy today with spells of rain.” Who ever says “spells of rain”? In the US they say “scattered showers”. How boring. The Irish style is more vague, more ephemeral. While the US forecasters pride themselves on their scientific accuracy, the Irish are content with a more human outlook. Spells of rain are much more acceptable than scattered showers. You don’t know how long a spell can last, but knowing it was just a spell of rain makes it more bearable somehow.

“Fog early on, then the best of sunshine and largely dry.” Almost sounds like something you’d wish for someone, or a blessing you might bestow.

Here is another story, rather un-Irish if you ask me from the Evening Herald of 20 November 2007: Santas in the town of Sydney have reportedly been told not to say the immortal phrase, ‘Ho, ho, ho’ in case it offends women and they think they are being called a slang American word for prostitute—they’re being asked or replace it with ‘Ha, ha, ha!”

The story points out that thanks to the Santa recruitment agency, children in that Irish town now know that ‘ho’ is also slang for prostitute. The author goes on to decry this latest incident of Political Correctness, and how people get all excited about such miniscule things while the major issues of war and poverty and famine will prevent so many children from enjoying this Christmas season.

Someone sent me one of those emails that make the rounds periodically at this time of year, but it was one I hadn’t seen before. It talked about Christmas from Jesus’ point of view, saying don’t fret about nativity scenes being banned from city hall lawns—put one in your own yard and soon we won’t need a crèche at city hall. It was kind of neat and gave me some ideas, like when to say, “Merry Christmas” to people.

I have decided to wage my own private war on political correctness, so every time I say “Merry Christmas” I strike another blow for freedom. Let’s take back Christmas! Have a merry one!