Aussie here. We say Merry Xmas, just like the UK and US because it's distinctive, so you don't get a repetitive greeting. It's "Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!", not "Happy Xmas and Happy New Year!". That sounds stupid.
The song goes “We wish you a merry Christmas”, so that’ll always be there for as long as the song is popular.
Plus (also because of the song, I assume), you say “merry Christmas and a happy new year”, not “happy Christmas and a happy new year”. Too much happy there.
I think Merry Christmas is a harken to antiquated dialect, much like other religious phrases. Thou shalt not kill or Thy will be done or extra Ecclesiam nulla salus
“Merry Christmas” is pretty much the only context I see my fellow Americans use the word “Merry” other than deliberately trying to sound upper class British.
What if you don’t intend to see someone before New Year’s and want to wish them a happy New Year as well, while being lazy?
I really don’t get this hatred for “Happy Holidays”, because even if you want to discredit the non Christian holidays in December/January, there are still two…
I think some people (usually right wing Americans who watched too much Fox News back in the 2000s) are opposed to "happy holidays" because they don't want to acknowledge other religions.
And then there are snobby Europeans who hate and avoid the phrase because it sounds "too American".
Merry also means drunk - at least in common British English.
Therefore it is quite an easy state to attain either from the offy, or a few pubs tat are also open for a few hours in the afternoon.
Lol no. You yanks can’t pronounce the R. The only real R is a rolling R. If your tongue is not tapping and vibrating against your palate you are not pronouncing an R.
There's a slight chance I could be convinced to accept the french R into the company of real R sounds, but I agree the rolling one is where it's at. The American one is something special.
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