"the listening-to of Christmas music"

[Scott]

On Mon, Dec 01, 2008 at 04:32:48PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote:
> In my youth in the 'Forties and 'Fifties, people used to pompously
> intone strings like "the listening-to of Christmas music" for laughs.
> They sounded really hilariously wrong. Nowadays, people use such
> constructions so often that I'm beginning to wonder whether anyone
> younger than thirty finds anything unusual about them. Certainly, such
> strings are easily  generated and easily understood.
>

Well, I'm well over thirty )-: But 'the listening-to' doesn't strike
me as so strange, probably from the too oft repeated listening-to of
my 20-something children. Actually, "the lighting-up of the Hanukkah
candles" sounds equally acceptable. So does "the dancing-around of the
solsticial bonfire"....

Scott Swanson

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