The speaker is asking whether old friends should be forgotten, as a way of stating that obviously one should not forget one's old friends. The answer is that it's a rhetorical question. "Should old acquaintance be forgot?" is a rhetorical questionĪs immortalized in When Harry Met Sally, a casual listener to the song is likely to be confused as to what the central opening lyric means: Bridging the gap is a once-famous, now-forgotten Canadian big band leader who for decades defined New Year's Eve and transformed a Scottish folk custom into a global phenomenon. The problem is that the text on which the song is based isn't in English at all - it's 18th-century Scots, a similar but distinct language responsible for lyrics in the song such as "We twa hae run about the braes / and pou’d the gowans fine" that are utterly incomprehensible to Americans.īut the story of how an 18th-century Scottish ballad became synonymous with the new year is tangled, involving both Calvinist theology's traditional aversion to Christmas and the uniquely central role that watching television plays in American New Year's celebrations. This New Year's Eve, it is almost inevitable that you will hear (and possibly try to sing) "Auld Lang Syne," a song whose melody is synonymous with the new year (and the theme of change more broadly) in the English-speaking world, despite nearly incomprehensible syntax and vocabulary.