Jessica
Doctor Octopus seems to have been exclusively referred to as Doc Ock for the last decade or so.
Has he? That’s dumb too.
I really have my doubts, but I doubt it’s been polled or studied to provide any data one way or the other. What spurred my rant though was first, noticing that the *Dora the Explorer *Christmas special my youngest daughter was watching never used “Claus” even once throughout the episode, despite many, many references to Santa; then, that every time my daughter saw an image of Santa Claus anywhere, she would point and say “Santa!” but without the “Claus”. I really think it’s fading out, like the “pie” in “pizza pie” was 50 years ago or whenever. (You still hear in some regions an individual pizza referred to as a “pie”; but I think this sounds weird and archaic, maybe even just puzzling, to most people under 50 in most parts of the country.)
I find it unlikely, as pretty much everywhere you go this time of year has “Here Comes Santa Claus” or “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” or some other Santa Christmas carol playing. I’m pretty sure they’ve noticed the “Claus” after “Santa.” (And I generally call him Santa, myself, but I might be a bit younger than you, it sounds, at 39, so I may be part of the generation that has been on a more familiar basis with him. Although look at this trailer from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964). Don’t ask me why that movie, except that was the first one that popped into mind–I watch a lot of MST3K. Except for the title, he is referred to as “Santa” everywhere. I really, really don’t think this is a new development.)
Damn Dutch/New Amsterdam imperialism: It’s Father Christmas.
…Mary Christmas…
But he just calls her “Mother”
Ah, “Mrs. Santa”. See, there ya go, **pulykamell **(and BTW, you and I are pretty close to the same age–mid-GenX). A data point for my contention that they *don’t *really know she’s “Mrs. Claus”.
My whole life I’ve heard people refer to him as both “Santa Claus” and just “Santa”.
This is from the 60s.
No dispute on my part that the short version, “Santa” has been around for a long time (we’ve seen a cite here from the 19th century). I just think “Claus” is fading out.
Sometimes on websites I’ll see a graph showing linguistic change based on how common a word choice was in various decades leading up to the present. Anyone know how to do that with “Santa Claus”? It wouldn’t of course capture the way people talk (I get the sense that young children, preschool teachers, etc. are leading the wave of eschewing “Claus”) but it would be interesting nonetheless.
…you mean that Lauren Graham was wrong**??? 
(…yeah, but get her to ever admit it…)
Oh yeah, she was in Bad Santa. What did she say?