Miss LE (etymological warrior, of but 5 summers): Daddy, what does Friday mean?
LE: Its named after a God from the olden days, sweetheart. Freya's day, a Norse Goddess.
Miss LE: What's Norse?
LE: Norse means from Norway.
Miss LE: What about Wednesday?
LE: That's Woden's day. Another Norse God. All the days are named liked that, or after the sun or moon. I don't know what Tuesday is named after though.
[pause]
Miss LE: ...it sounds like Cheese.
LE: Ok
Miss LE: Yeah, there was a Cheese man in the olden days, daddy.
LE: [LOL outbreak]
Miss LE: And he was a God. The Morse God of Cheese. OK?
LE: [pulling car over to recover] OK sweetheart.
Miss LE: .....Why are we stopping?
4 comments:
Tiw, the Morse god of war. In French, and so on, Tuesday is named after the Roman god of war - Mars - hence "Mardi". (But Cheese Day sounds good. I'd go with that.)
Those Morwegians sure knew how to frock up with cool deities! Tiw huh? I cant begin to imagine how its pronounced... "chew"?
Its 'Dienstag' in Cherman - which seems like a third thing altogether. Dienst means "duty" but im guessing its morphed too much over the years.
Norse = Tyr
Anglo-Saxon = Tiw (Ti-uu)
"W" is the transliteration of the letter wynn, or ƿ (pronounced as an extended, or double, "u", much like the Latin "v"), coincidentally also the first letter of Woden (or "Odin"), the god after which Wednesday is named.
Well, that sound much how it still is - ti-uu's day.
Incidentally [*blog-signature, trivia ping noise*] Portuguese is the only Romance (and probably only European) language to have fully de-Paganised name days, way back in the 6th c.
You've got yer standard Sábado (Sabbath), yer regular Domingo (Day of the Lord), then its all "feiras" being "days you should not work" (as if mimicking Easter week) - which sounds alright to me! Viz Segunda-feira – Monday, Terça-feira - Tuesday,Quarta-feira etc.
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