Aaron Boone pauses on his "Happy New Year" grammar passion project

01/01/2025 04:33 PM

The skipper had taken up a very particular grammarian cause on social media for the past few years.

Social media has provided an opportunity to hold truth to power, giving the common citizen a voice that reaches across the globe, and the opportunity to build communities that would be impossible without it. Aaron Boone, however, primarily uses his platform for very occasional live-tweeting of football games—mainly of his USC Trojans or Philadelphia Eagles—promoting his $395 Cameo account, and enforcing a personal grammar pet peeve: people who wish him a "Happy New Years."

It started on January 1, 2020. He harmlessly wished everyone a Happy New Year. The replies were filled with hope for 2020, the famously optimistic year.

All but one reply wished him a Happy New Year, not "Happy New Years." However, it's unclear whether it was a personal message or that one reply on social media that triggered his next friendly reminder response.

It garnered 308 replies, with a consensus of support for the issue.

Boone is correct that "Happy New Years" is grammatically incorrect, as it refers to a singular holiday and event. "Happy New Year" is a nice, direct, all-encompassing expression to offer well wishes in the new year. "Happy New Year's" should be used when specifically referring to New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. The sticking point could be whether "Happy New Year's" is acceptable in informal instances without explicitly mentioning "Day" or "Eve." Most would agree it's fine, but Boone's post does not clarify his stance on the possessive apostrophe in such cases. What is clear, however, is that he will not tolerate a "Happy New Years" message.

In the next turn of the calendar, he let the issue sit. After a year full of turmoil and division, Boone took a breather with just a nice little Bitmoji heading into 2021.

He wished everyone a Happy New Year going into 2022, but no reminder.

Like other things you let simmer underneath, they eventually boiled back up. He sent out two more reminders about this subject heading into the 2023 and 2024 new year.

Marking the passage of time, as the Yankees' World Series drought grew, he may have come to the sad realization that him being the messenger for this just cause might not be beneficial. In his last social media post, the 2024 reminder, he received messages similar to this one from a user named Steve:

For the Yankees players on social media yesterday, there were only a few wishes for a Happy New Year, with none committing the grammar crime that draws their skipper's ire. Aaron Judge, always a unifier, stayed away from the matter altogether, staying away from words altogether in the caption.

It's the middle of the afternoon on New Year's Day, and this writer is spending part of it waiting in anticipation for his new reminder to drop. If the Yankees had gone on to win the World Series, would Boone have had the swagger to be the grammar police? We are again left playing the "what-if" game about this team.

The statute of limitations may have passed according to the Curb Your Enthusiasmstandard of etiquette by the time you are reading this. But regardless, I hope you all had a Happy New Year and that 2025 brings you peace, love, joy, and happiness. It is all right in front of us.