“Bah, humbug!” is the famous phrase uttered by Ebenezer Scrooge, the bitter, splenetic (see definition and hear pronunciation below) character in the Charles Dickens novel A Christmas Carol.

It takes the eerie presence of three spirits to shake Scrooge to his core and give him a drastic change of heart. Showing him the joys of his Christmases past and present, as well as his grim future if he remains hard and spiteful, the ghosts give him a warning–and a great gift.

When Scrooge wakes after the spirits have departed, he’s a changed man, filled with generosity and joy!

Want to see the 1935 film Scrooge, which was based on Dickens’ iconic novel? Check it out here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scrooge_1935.ogv

Cool word vocabulary question of the day: Can you think of any other splenetic characters from books or movies?

Splenetic: Bad-tempered, spiteful, angry.

Photo courtesy of Robert Doucette

Click to hear the pronunciation of splenetic:

https://coolwordclub.com/wp-content/uploads/splenetic.mp3