So, how's that War on Christmas going?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

More uses of "Merry Christmas" than ever. Tiny uptick of "Happy Holidays," bringing it to 1950s levels. "Season's Greetings" is out of the running.

Note that the Ngram Viewer has its oddities--seems to make a difference whether you use capital letters or not. And "Season's Greetings," with apostrophe, wasn't coming up at all. Make of this what you will.

(Go to Friday's TVB entry for more on the Ngram Viewer, the fad that's sweeping the nation. I hope it gives the nation a thorough dusting, too.)

The Velvet Blog's influence on the national discourse, 1985-2008

Yes, it's the fad that's sweeping the globe: using Google's Ngram Viewer to chart the use of words or phrases over time. The New York Times story is here, and the tool itself is here.

I decided to track four stock TVB phrases--give me that banana, wacky high jinks ensue, garnish with fluffernutter, and barry manilow puts a sock in his pants--to see how they've made inroads into popular culture. Let's take a look:



Hmmm. Not so much, then.

Well, I take minor solace in noting that The Velvet Blog is the #1 Google hit for "wacky high jinks ensue," but it has dropped to #2 for "barry manilow puts a sock in his pants," (though the #1 hit is me complaining that I'm not the #1 hit on another site). You know, I should probably get some new hobbies.