What Is a Humbug?

When Ebenezer Scrooge said, “Christmas, bah humbug,” what did he mean?

When Charles Dickens first had Ebenezer Scrooge utter the words, “Christmas, bah humbug,” six days before the holiday in 1843, what did the English author have in mind? Was Scrooge comparing the holiday to an insect? No. But it was nothing good either. The word humbug first made its way into the English language as slang about 100 years before Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol,” according to the Miriam Webster online dictionary and my college version of Webster’s New World Dictionary. Neither dictionary nor an online search shed much light into the meaning of the word in the 1750’s other than it was used by college students. By the time Dickens penned the utterance into the vocabulary for use by a man whose name has become synonymous with …

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Theater Review

'Christmas Carol' Has Heart, But Uneven Parts, Too

The singing, music, dancing and most of the acting hit high notes.

When the lights come up on Metropolis Performing Arts Centre's production of "A Christmas Carol," they reveal Bob Cratchit's family sitting around their dining room table. That's a jolt for theater-goers accustomed to the traditional version of the show. It represents a radical re-working of the script by Scott Woldman, resident playwright at Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights, where the show runs through Dec. 24. The production has some fine acting, music, singing and dancing. The most notable thing about it, however, is the new script, which has some strengths as well as weaknesses. Woldman's version makes Bob Cratchit the occasional narrator and uses his narrations as an organizing framework for the story. The …

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