As you prepare to stuff your Thanksgiving bird, see whether you can stuff the blanks in this well-known seasonal song:

"Over the river and through the _____, to ___________'_ house we go."

Easy, right? "Woods" and "Grandmother's."

Oops.

In fact, the right stuff-ins for this turkey tune are actually "wood" and "Grandfather's."

The lyrics for the song come from "Thanksgiving Day," a 12-stanza poem by the 19th-century abolitionist Lydia Maria Child who, when not lambasting slaveowners, was apparently basting turkeys.

In fact, Lydia's original phrasing ("wood" and "Grandfather's") is legally protected by a grandfather clause (which also gave her all North American rights to the song, a 50% cut of foreign video releases and a healthy slice of profits from the "Horse-Knows-the-Way" brand of children's sleds).

So, if you shed the "s" in "wood," Lydia's lawyers will take you to the woodshed. Remember, these are the same guys who prosecuted the Cranberry Eight back in 1968 for changing "white and drifted snow" to "white and drafted snow" as a subliminal anti-war message.

Not to mention "Farmyard gate-gate," the high-level White House scandal in which Richard Nixon was caught on tape singing "straight through the farmyard gate" instead of the correct "barnyard gate." Judging from the uncensored trial transcript, Lydia's angry lawyers clearly favored the "barnyard" epithet.

In the next line, the impatient kids sitting in the back of the sleigh sing, "We seem to go extremely slow; it is so hard to wait" — the 19th-century equivalent of "Are we there yet?"

Approaching the house, the kids proclaim, "Old Jowler hears our bells." A derisive term for their grandad? Mercifully, no. As the next line makes clear, it's his dog: "He shakes his pow, with a loud bow-wow." ("Pow" is an old-timey term for "head.")

But in all the fuss over these lyrics, we've overlooked the most laughable line of all: "The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh." Notice that, instead of pulling the sleigh, the horse carries it. Must be a strong horse.

I'm picturing Grandfather greeting the sled-toting steed as it labors into the barnyard...

Horse: Can I put this thing down somewhere?

Gramps: Oh, just set it down by the chicken coop... Hey, why are your legs so wet and scratched up?

Horse: Acchhhh... I mixed up those darn lyrics again. Instead of going over the river and through the wood, I went through the river and over the wood. I hate when that happens.

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Connecticut, invites your language sightings. His book, "Mark My Words," is available for $9.99 on Amazon.com. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via email to WordGuy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, California, 90254.

Photo credit: Michelle_Maria at Pixabay