Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

AnnaNine said
I recently came across Berton Braley's Christmas Poem "Of Course He Doesn't" in a 1923 newspaper. The poem's central concept is that Santa Claus doesn't get old. I see this as a double-entendre — that of Santa not aging and that the concept of Santa Claus never gets old, in the current meaning of that phrase. But I wonder if Braley intended that second meaning, or even whether that phrase had the meaning in 1923 that it has today.

If I do a case-insensitive search for "it never gets old" in Googles n-gram viewer, it seems to have sprung up right before the Civil War.  At the bottom of the page, there are links to searches in the documents in the historical database.  Checking those, it appears that they are all using it in the "doesn't get tiresome" rather than a "remains at the same stage of life" sense, not that there's a great deal of difference in the two.

Reading the poem, it appears that the uncle is being disingenuous, for while the nephew is concerned about the health of the Christmas Day donor, the uncle is talking about the concept.  It's as if the kid was asking if Miss America can have as baby, or the president can die.  Miss America is renewed annually, and if she develops a bulge, the runner-up would become Miss America long before a baby would be viable, and we have a mechanism in place to replace the president every so often.  Thus, the President and Miss America are timeless as well as Alice in Wonderland that the author mentions (although Alice Liddell died in 1934 at 82 years of age.)

Perhaps Braley was under the impression that Santa Claus was a fictional character, rather than a mythical one such as Johnny Appleseed or Rex, King of Mardi Gras.  John Chapman is buried on the former Archer farm north of Fort Wayne, but a different person becomes Rex each year, and multiple people become Santa Claus each year, some repeatedly, in a multitasking project that predates digital electronics.

It's sad that some grown adults fail to understand that Santa Claus IS nonfctional, and if they fail to write a letter to Santa, they obviously won't get any present from him. 

Ho, ho, ho, and welcome to the forum, Anna!