This article explores the unique vocabulary that captures the feelings and experiences of the period between Christmas and New Year.
Thankfully, English caters for those who loathe New Year ’s resolutions as well as those who embrace them. And New Year , the overall feeling for many of us is one of limbo, when time has lost all relevance and the crapulence of the season begins to bite. That word “crapulence”, from the 18th century, is defined in the historical dictionary as the result of “gross intemperance”, which nicely encompasses excesses of all descriptions.
At a time when our emotions feel as stretched as our budgets and belts, it might be helpful to consider the vocabulary that caters for this peculiar time of year. We can kick off, appropriately enough, with January, for its name is almost the perfect summary of these days of suspended animation. It is a tribute to Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and keeper of doorways, who is traditionally depicted with two faces: one facing forward, and the other ahead. In the days that straddle a new year we might cast a wistful glance back at the one just passed even as we eye up the one to come. Of course, the expectation of any January is that we jettison the booze and the blues and hold onto new resolutions for dear life. This is the time when we are meant to lick ourselves into shape, an expression with the most beautifully literal origins, looking back to the belief that bear cubs were born as formless furry blobs, and needed to be licked into bear shape by their mothers. The blob analogy might seem particularly apt right now. A new shape doesn’t always come easily, of course. Many of us will have resorted to the “Yule-hole” in recent weeks: a 19th century dialect term for the furthest notch in our belts, reserved for the Christmas blow-out.For those of us who can shake off the Chrimbo limbo sufficiently to try some exercise, it’s worth savouring that the word “gym” comes from an ancient word for “exercising naked” – the Greeks loved nothing more than showing off their buffness to others
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