"North Pole" and Christmas, Santa Claus

[Baker, John]

        Snopes does recognize that the issue is at least in doubt, at http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/donner.asp (an article about the names of Santa's reindeer).  The article that refers to the George P. Webster poem was last updated in February 2001, and it seems that Snopes was not yet aware of the case for Livingston's authorship.

        A number of web sites give credit to the Webster poem for placing Santa's home at the North Pole.  There seems to be some uncertainty as to when the poem first appeared; it was published in Santa Claus and His Works, but various dates are given for the short book.  If Barry can find evidence that the North Pole location predated Webster, that would be a valuable contribution to Santa Claus scholarship.

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Mark A. Mandel
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 12:42 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "North Pole" and Christmas, Santa Claus


Larry and Barry are both dubious about Snopes, and for the same reason. Why
not write to them? Strategically speaking, since Snopes is already not
answering Barry, maybe just Larry should write, signing with all his
academic credentials and all the reasoning involved.

-- Mark, sitting on the sidelines and encouraging the fray
[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]