AULD LANG SYNE

The first word of the day of 2011. And it isn’t even a word!

Listen to Andy Rooney. I just had to share this because it’s so amusing. Rooney struggles with having fun on New Year’s Eve and he’d rather go to bed at 10:30 p.m. Or he’d at least like to grab a snack from his refrigerator and watch the celebration on TV. He doesn’t even know what Auld Lang Syne means! Oh wait, neither do I.

Auld Lang Syne is a poem written by Robert Burns in 1788, according to Wikipedia. “The song’s Scots title may be translated into English literally as ‘old long since’, or more idiomatically, ‘long long ago’, ‘days gone by’ or ‘old times’. Consequently ‘For auld lang syne’, as it appears in the first line of the chorus, is loosely translated as ‘for (the sake of) old times’.”

Apparently, Rooney is tired of remembering the old times and would rather go to bed. Despite his I’m-a-ranting-old-guy message, I think Rooney was trying to say that we should slow down and be thankful for what we have, like our TVs and refrigerators.

Or maybe he’s just done with partying. In that case, maybe it’s a good thing Rooney isn’t on the streets of Times Square. No one wants a New Year’s scrooge.