"certain" inThe First Noel

[Wilson Gray]

How about this interpretation:

The angels said that the _first_ Noel, in case didn't none of y'all
know it, was to certain poor shepherds as they were lying in the
fields.

I now realize that this doesn't this doesn't make any sense, but it
has always been my  understanding of the carol since I was about six
years old. At the time that I learned it, I figured that it was just
Bible-talk or something similar that didn't bear thinking about. I've
long felt that, if Christianity wasn't taught from birth, nobody would
believe in it. (Yes, I realize that, even as I write, adults are being
converted to The One True Faith or to some other version of
Christianity. However, in 99.44% of cases, these conversions are being
helped along by a touch of the old fire and sword and / or by a kiss
of the cargo cult, abstracting away from conversions from one version
of Christianity to another.)

-Wilson

On 8/2/07, Marc Sacks <msacks at theworld.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Marc Sacks <msacks at THEWORLD.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "certain" inThe First Noel
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >
> > As we all recall, the line in The First Noel is,
> >   Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay . . .
> >
>
> I have to thank this group for making me think about something that I
> never bothered to notice before. I agree with Mark Mandel about the
> angels. If I thought about it at all, I would have imagined the angels
> relating the story ("The first Noel, the angels did say,. . .") about a
> particular ("certain"--what's so odd about that?) group of shepherds for
> whom the vision/annunciation/apparation of the birth of Christ existed
> ("was") before anyone else knew about it.
>
> It really is fascinating that these apparently simple lyrics can be
> construed so many different ways.
>
> Marc Sacks
> msacks at theworld.com
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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