Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Dallas Hinton:

DH>  "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" has been parodied on Twitter. 

ak>  IMHO, the main problem is not in commas but in some English 
ak>  verbs that can be translated in great variety of ways. ;-)
                                     |a great variety


          Understood.  If your dictionaries include phrases like "rest easy" & "rest assured" that's close to the mark.  If they say "rest" means to be still and/or relaxed... not agitated or troubled... that's also close to the mark.

          WRT "rest" as a transitive verb, I might say I need to rest my weary bones after some physical exertion.  This means I'd like to allow or enable my body to relax for awhile.  Years ago some people would have said "God rest his soul"... now classified as archaic.  "God rest you" is listed in our 1971 OED, but I had to wade through +/- eight pages of detail in small print to find it.

          I feel your pain WRT deceptively short & simple words which are used in various ways.  It reminds me of problems I had with the French language.  I see an added complication WRT this song, however.  As people become more adept at reading (e.g.) they learn to group words into phrases.  "God rest ye merry" no longer makes sense to a lot of people our era & some of them try to correct what they regard as an error in punctuation.  These amendments are significant in terms of performing arts.  The OED cites Shakespeare as having written "God rest you merry, sir."  I conclude that those who think the comma belongs after "merry", as it appears in older versions of the song, are probably right.  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+