Are you still singing Christmas songs in your house? Is it because your children are still singing Christmas songs? That's the way it is here. Ugh. I'm over it. But it keeps an issue in the forefront of my mind, too. You see, this year my children actually paid more attention to the lyrics. Know what is in the lyrics of quite a few Christmas songs? Euphemisms. Okay, you say. What's wrong with that?
Well, we've been teaching our children to not use words like dang, darn, gosh, gee, or anything of the like. They're too close to what they're replacing (and we all know what words those are so I won't go there). And my children have taken this very seriously. This year, my daughter lost both her top front teeth in November. Perfect. Just in time to sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth." And she did it as many times as she could, despite the new teeth growing in. Only one problem. There's a few euphemisms in there. She asked what to do. I replied, "Just replace those words with ones that are okay. How about 'boy, oh boy, how happy I'd be ...'?" She made it work and then went on to do the same for several other songs. My publisher also has a rule about not using euphemisms. And as a content editor, that's one of the things I catch, especially in new-to-the-company authors. It's not a huge deal. I mark them and ask them to delete/replace. Why does it matter so much? Well, the Bible tells us to avoid "the very appearance of evil." Guys. Not only are we supposed to avoid evil, we're supposed to avoid anything that might look like it! That's big. And encompasses so much more. So, I'm okay with not using euphemisms. Or letting my children use them either. Because I don't want someone to overhear them say something and think they said something worse. I don't want anywhere near that line, thank you very much. So, in our house, we don't say that. How about you? How do you get around song lyrics, etc that contain such words?
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This is a place for me to share thoughts and ideas not just related to writing. Thoughts about what's going on in my life, about an idea I got that I thought shareworthy, or just a funny anecdote.
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