Thursday, August 26, 2010

Days of the week and their names

Here is a list of the days of the week and where their names come from. Don't know why, but I find this interesting. Maybe it is because my class was the first to have computer literature substituted for etymology, so I missed all that cool word stuff way back when.

Sunday - The day of the sun. Pretty obvious there. With the sun being that big thing in the sky. There is no evidence that Sunday was related to NFL football and tractor pulls ("Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!") until the late 20th Century.

Monday - The day of the moon. Again, except for a missing O, it is relatively obvious. And probably not coincidentally, they usually show a shot of the moon sometime during Monday Night Football.

Tuesday - Originally "Tiw's day" named after Tiw, which was the Old English form of Tyr, the Norse god of war. I guess we have something to fight about on Tuesday.

Wednesday - This is where it gets a bit confusing. Wednes is a Middle English form of Woden, from the Norse god Odin, who was linked to the Roman god Mercury. Which explains why the Spanish version is Miercoles. And if you say "Odin's Day" really fast, or maybe really slow, it does sound a little like Wednesday.

Thursday - A form of "Thor's day" with Thor being the Norse god of thunder. Evidently, people felt like thundering on Thursday because the next day is...

Friday - Which was not named after the restaurant. But rather it comes from a variation of the Old English "Frige day", which was not named after the refrigerator. Frigg, sometimes known as Frigga, was a Norse goddess who happened to be married to Odin. She is described as the "foremost among the goddesses". Just as Friday is the foremost among the days to most people.

Saturday - Named after the planet Saturn and not the god Saturn, actually. Bet you didn't see that coming. In ancient astrology, it was believed that the planet Saturn in some way controlled the first hour of that particular day of the week, so they decided to name it "Saturn's day". Of course the god named Saturn was the god of agriculture, and Saturday is a good day to go out and cut the grass. 

So now you know. Impress your friends!

0 comments: