The Grinch is an iconic American Christmas cartoon figure who you may already know about, but if you don’t, you should!  The Grinch is a well-known mean, greedy, rude, bad-mannered, foul, and sinister* guy. The Grinch is a fictional** character, who was created by the children’s book author Dr. Seuss in the 1950s.  The Grinch is the main character of the children’s book How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which is a favorite Christmas story of many young children (and adults).  Even though the Grinch is an awful Christmas-hating character he is still quite popular.  This is partly due to the fact that by the end of the book he isn’t as awful as he was at the beginning.  Americans have liked the Grinch so much that after the book was released a cartoon television series, a full length film, and even a Broadway play have also been made about him! To give you a better idea of the Grinch’s reputation*** take a look at the music video of the song “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch”.  I have written the lyrics to this song out so you can follow along.  As you will see most of this song is spent insulting the Grinch and comparing him to awful things, yet like the Grinch this is a favorite song this time of year.

You’re a mean one, Mister Grinch

You really are a heel,   (a heel = a bad person, someone who does things wrong on purpose)

You’re as cuddly as a cactus, you’re as charming as an eel, Mister Grinch,

You’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel!

You’re a monster, Mister Grinch,

Your heart’s an empty hole,

Your brain is full of spiders, you’ve got garlic in your soul, Mister Grinch,

I wouldn’t touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!

You’re a vile one, Mister Grinch, (vile = extremely unpleasant)

You have termites in your smile,

You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile, Mister Grinch,

Given a choice between the two of you I’d take the … seasick crocodile!

You nauseate me, Mister Grinch,  (to nauseate = to make someone feel sick)

With a nauseous super “naus”, (super”naus” is  a play on words meaning really very sickening/nauseating)

You’re a crooked dirty jockey and you drive a crooked hoss, Mister Grinch,  (‘hoss” means ‘horse’ in this sentence – it is misspelled this way to rhyme)

You’re a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich, with arsenic sauce!

You’re a foul one, Mister Grinch,

You’re a nasty wasty skunk, (wasty is not a real word, just a playful words/sounds)

Your heart is full of unwashed socks, your soul is full of gunk, Mister Grinch,  (gunk = unpleasant sticky or messy substance)

The three words that describe you are as follows, and I quote, “Stink, Stank, Stunk!” (stink, stank, stunk = three conjugations of the verb to stink)

You’re a rotter, Mister Grinch,  (rotter = worthless, unpleasant person)

You’re the king of sinful sots,  (sot = a drunken person; an older word not often used in modern English)

Your heart’s a dead tomato splotched with moldy purple spots, Mister Grinch, (splotched = marked with irregular sized spots)

Your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of rubbish imaginable, mangled up in tangled up knots!

*mean, greedy, rude, bad-mannered, foul, sinister = these are all insults or negative things to say about a person
**fictional = not real, made up
***reputation = the beliefs or opinions held about a person/thing