Joyeux Nowell, you silly English kaniggets*!

More church music nonsense.

Remember that lovely carol "The First Noel"? In the back of our Missal, it's "The First Nowell".

At first, I thought it was just an unfortunate typographical error in the title. No, it is spelled that way throughout the lyrics.

Next, I thought it might be part of Bill O'Reilly's boycott of all things French. You know, "freedom fries" and all that.

Nah, that's just silly.

I finally decided it must be a tacit acknowledgement of the failure of our government schools. Phonetically easing the burden of those lunkheads unfortunate enough to have been unable to escape the curse of the lowest common denominator.

Nope. Not even close.

The small print at the bottom of the carol identifies "Nowell" as the spelling used by the ignorant seventeenth century Englishman who wrote it. He didn't have any better grasp of French than we do.

Why, kiddies? That's what I'm asking. Why can't we just leave things alone?

It may start with the small things, but it never stops there.

* You silly English K...kaniggets (190k)