Earlier today I became aware that that insipid Christmas song, "The Little Drummer Boy," which I have loathed these many years, was running in my head and would not stop. Mild and even-tempered a fellow as I am, a virtual milquetoast, I could not help but reflect how gratifying it would be if the composer, lyricist, arranger, musicians, and everyone involved in the publication, production, dissemination, and broadcast of that song were set to work trimming Satan's bunions.*
In other holiday news, at Motivated Grammar, where it had previously been thought that my strictures against holiday cliches were perhaps too severe, there has been a conversion experience, prompted by this headline from the Salt Lake Tribune: "Yes, Virginia, there is no Newt (on the ballot)." When you have to explain the joke in your headline with parentheses …
Now there are only a few more days to endure year-in-review top-ten features about things we already knew, and then we will have a fresh new year to clutter up with cliches and lame journalistic gimmicks.
*Irreverence runs in the family. My older sister, Georgia McIntyre, used to express mock sympathy for the little castrati in the Vienna Boys Choir, because "they sing that song every year and their voices never change."