[HN Gopher] Beware the Lides of March
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Beware the Lides of March
        
       Author : samclemens
       Score  : 25 points
       Date   : 2024-02-29 04:53 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.historytoday.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.historytoday.com)
        
       | dhosek wrote:
       | We tend to forget about the classical origins of so much
       | calendrical terminology, although some languages do better than
       | others.
       | 
       | The days of the week come from the seven major heavenly bodies
       | known in the classical era. In English, in a bit of Roman
       | syncretism, the Roman Gods associated with some of the planets
       | were largely replaced with their Germanic equivalents (except,
       | mysteriously Saturday--from Saturn), but the Spanish names
       | (modulo the weekend) retain their Roman origins: Martes (Tuesday)
       | = Mars, Miercoles (Wednesday) = Mercury, Jueves (Thursday) =
       | Jupiter (the cognate is more obvious when you consider the
       | inflected forms of Jupiter have the root _iov_ - which is evident
       | in the phrase, "by Jove"), Viernes (Friday) = Venus.
       | 
       | So Tuesdays in March are a bit of double-dipping for the god of
       | war. As a pacifist, I cannot recommend celebrating these in a
       | martial manner.
        
         | gumby wrote:
         | > Jueves (Thursday) = Jupiter
         | 
         | Though in English it's Thor, a different god of thunder.
        
         | stevoski wrote:
         | > The Spanish names retain their Roman origins.
         | 
         | As do the French, Italian, and Catalan names.
         | 
         | But Portuguese, no. For Monday to Friday they use something
         | like "second", "third", "fourth", "fifth", "sixth".
         | 
         | And that, perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, is similar to
         | the days of the week in Arabic.
        
           | stevoski wrote:
           | Adding to my own comment, because I was curious and had to
           | look it up:
           | 
           | In Galician (which is very similar to Portuguese), the days
           | of the week use the Roman-derived names, unlike Portuguese.
        
       | nescioquid wrote:
       | How is the name pronounced?
       | 
       | >> Lide...is recorded almost exclusively in sources from the
       | southwest of England. In the late 13th century...
       | 
       | The Great Vowel Shift happened later than this, so perhaps it was
       | something like LEED-AH?
       | 
       | >> The etymology of 'Lide' goes back to the Old English name
       | Hlyda
       | 
       | Looking up a pronounciation for Hlyda, I find:
       | 
       | hlyda, m.n: March. (HLUE-dah / 'hly:-da)
       | 
       | Or was it more like LOOD-AH?
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-03-01 23:02 UTC)