The "holidays" tree has been looking good in the lower Octagon in Dunedin this week, adorned with "holidays" decorations and a large banner exclaiming, you guessed it, "Happy Holidays".
On the night before "holidays", children will be champing at the bit to get at the "holidays" presents. You can enjoy a nice piece of "holidays" cake, even a "holidays" mince pie or two. Then, on "holidays" Day, there’ll be "holidays" dinner, possibly a "holidays" barbecue, and you can pull a few "holidays" crackers while reading your "holidays" cards.
However, I’m now hearing some people are offended — nay, hugely insulted, actually — by the use of "happy" in "happy holidays".
"How dare they assume we’re happy," they say.
"We’re actually as miserable as sin. This is highly offensive to us."
As a consequence, the recommended new wording from next year for the period around December 25 will be "Neutral Holidays".
And for those who don’t have holidays, or find the very idea of the word insensitive, a working party has been set up and is now asking for suggestions of replacement words, to be submitted through this column.
Barnes Dance
There’s always a frisson of danger crossing main streets, particularly on the diagonal. I’m reliably informed by an ODT colleague that Dunedin residents have been missing out on the special delight of the Barnes Dance for many years, but they are on the way back."The announcement — ‘proposed dedicated pedestrian phases within light-controlled intersections at either end of the Bus Hub’ — is buried in the Dunedin City Council’s planning report on the hub, indicating they will be installed at two intersections on Great King St, with Moray Pl and St Andrew St," my colleague says.
While popular belief would have it these crossings are named after former Dunedin mayor the late Sir James Barnes, they were actually inspired by United States traffic engineer and commissioner Henry A. Barnes, who served in many cities, including Flint in Michigan, Denver in Colorado, Baltimore in Maryland and New York City.
Worst opening lines
Now for a twist on the earlier assignment to provide favourite first sentences to a novel.
Instead of going along with what others have written, why not write your own? And make them awful and pretentious.
Barry Bain, of Wanaka, is the inspiration for this idea. He offers these two to finish off our week.
1: "For most of his latter years, Bertram Muffinbaker had been in the habit of sleeping peacefully, akimbo like a somnolent starfish; that is until late in the evening of 17th April, when his neighbour called in her chiffon nightdress (the one with the natty ripcord neckbow) to borrow a cup of sugar."
2: "Natasha stretched languidly in the alpine sun and watched, fascinated, as a symphonic puff of breaking wind gently stirred a Mexican wave into the tall colours of the surrounding wildflowers."
See you next week.