78. Christmas – It’s all about Family (with James)

[55:00]
L: They did. In letters, in abbreviations in letters “lol” means “lots of love”. Right? When you used in the old days, when you used to write notes by pen, by hand and stuff. So mum still writes “lol” at the end of her text messages, as if to say “Well, really looking forward to saying you this weekend. All the best. Lol.” and it’s like “Why is she laughing at the end of the text messages?”. She’s not laughing, she’s saying “lots of love”.
J: Okay. What’s next?
L: Next thing is the “Christmas trees”, we’ve already talked about that. Apparently they are originally come from Germany, but they were imported into England during the reign of queen Victoria who was married of course to Albert, who was the German prince and he brought the tradition of having Christmas trees with him to England. In America they’ve had Christmas trees for many years too, many people believe that that’s because many of the German kind of connections they have…
J: They had immigrants, first going over to America.
L: German immigrants brought the tradition of Christmas trees into the America as well. And let’s see…
J: No culture is really on its own, is it? It’s kind of the misnomer, people… not misnomer, a mistake. People seem to think that England is a sort of culture on itself, but obviously there is many many influences that have come into this country. The same, most of the world. Although I’m sure there is enclaves.
(James still pronounce a word enclave like /ˈɔːnkleɪv/ and Luke like /ˈenkleɪv/ )
L: Enclaves or enclaves.
J: It’s enclaves, because I’m sure it’s a French word.
L: Cambridge…
J: OED which is the Oxford English Dictionary, I prefer. He’s going for the Cambridge one.
L: Okay. (Luke makes a sound of triumph) I’m right. Enclave. Let’s hear it, shall we? Shall we hear it pronounced?
J: Okay.
L: Make it loud enough.
(Dictionary says /ˈenkleɪv/ )
J: Oh…
L: In your face. Enclave.
J: But I’m think it’s open to interpretation.
L: And in America.
(Dictionary says /ˈenkleɪv/ )
J: You’re going to believe that robot over me.
L: Excuse me, Cambridge… you just told us how reliable Cambridge dictionaries are.
J: Yeah. Well. What’s the origin of the word?
L: I don’t know. Look, look, actually there is another version of the pronunciation /ˈɔːnkleɪv/ , you can say /ˈɔːnkleɪv/ as well.
J: You can say either.
L: They both seem to say /ˈenkleɪv/ , don’t they? Listen.
J: Yes, but I think.
(Dictionary says /ˈenkleɪv/ )
J: Yes, we’ve already had that. Thank you. There is this thing about the origin of the word whether it’s French or whatever.
L: It’s probably is French, but doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter it’s originally French, doesn’t make it different to how it’s actually pronounced in English.
J: Well.
L: It doesn’t, I’m sorry. It doesn’t.
J: Anyway, you could use either.
L: Enclave or enclave, I prefer enclave ( /ˈenkleɪv/ ). Yeah. Oh, dear. Almost an hour has passed.
J: Let’s wind it up then.
L: Okay.
J: Wind it up – there is another phrase for you.
L: Let’s wind it up. Let’s kind of bring this episode to a close.
J: There is good Prodigy track called “Wind it up”. You should check it out… You should link to that from here. Click below now, if you want to hear “Wind it up” by The Prodigy.
L: Oh, I don’t think I do that. (sigh). So I’m just going to go through the rest of the things that are on the list. So other things: “Images of Christmas”: you’ve got snow, of course. White Christmas – the call it, when the snow is fallen.
J: We had a white Christmas last year.
L: That’s right. It’s very rare in this country, but sometimes we have white Christmas or “Christmas carols”…
J: Frank Sinatra…
L: (Luke is trying to quiet James) Just be quiet for a moment, please. Robins, these are birds which you see on Christmas cards. Cute little birds with a red chest. That’s a robin. Obviously there are other religious symbols like stars and stuff like that.
J: I mean obviously we are not anti-religious… we’re not aggressive atheists, we’re just saying “You can celebrate Christmas without being overtly religious about that.”
L: Doesn’t have to be religious.
J: Although we used to go to Christmas service, didn’t we? When we were younger.
L: We used to be religious, we were both baptised, when we were children, we were both baptised to be members of the an Anglican Church. We were, we were baptised.
J: Is it Anglican Church? I thought it’s Church of England.
L: Same thing.
J: Shows how much I know.
L: What do you know? Anglican, Church of England – same thing. Right?
J: Henry VIII.
L: Henry VIII. Yeah. That’s right. He…
J: He invented the Church of England, so you could have multiple wives.
L: He broke… not multiple… well, yeah.
J: So he could remarry.
L: Get divorce. Yeah. That’s right.
J: It caused a big rift between England and the Catholic Church.
L: Yeah. There was a big… Basically the Catholics in England were persecuted by the protestants and they were chased down and many of them were killed and slaughtered. Catholic priests had to hide away from… it’s ridiculous.
J: I know, we have very bloody history, this country.