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  • Some Real Days

    From Ross Clark@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jan 5 23:26:56 2025
    It was a bit of a chore last year, squeezing some linguistic interest
    out of all the fake "days" and deaths/births of literary figures that
    Crystal chose to include in his book.

    But I recently came across a list of national holidays in a lot of
    countries. (Actually it came inside a 2025 calendar I bought in Canada.)
    This set off some primal urge to wallow in data. Then I found a
    staggeringly comprehensive site with information about them all:

    https://www.officeholidays.com/countries

    This calmed me down a lot. So I'll confine myself to occasional
    observations as the days go by, and hopefully some flashes of linguistic interest.

    For example, here in New Zealand it's January 5, which is the Twelfth
    Day of Christmas (where the song ends), and in fact since it's 11pm,
    it's Twelfth Night!
    That means tomorrow is Epiphany (Greek epipháneia 'appearance'),
    commemorating the three kings/wise men coming to see baby Jesus.
    Called "Day of the Kings" and suchlike in some places. The "Three
    Kings", small islands at the north end of New Zealand, were so called by
    Abel Tasman because he first saw them on that day.
    Anyhow...Epiphany is actually a public holiday in quite a few countries.
    Then the next day (7th) is Orthodox Christmas!

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  • From Aidan Kehoe@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jan 5 12:13:46 2025
    Ar an cúigiú lá de mí Eanair, scríobh Ross Clark:

    [...] For example, here in New Zealand it's January 5, which is the Twelfth Day of Christmas (where the song ends), and in fact since it's 11pm, it's Twelfth Night! That means tomorrow is Epiphany (Greek epipháneia 'appearance'), commemorating the three kings/wise men coming to see baby Jesus. Called "Day of the Kings" and suchlike in some places. The "Three Kings", small islands at the north end of New Zealand, were so called by Abel Tasman because he first saw them on that day.

    It’s “Nollag na mBan” in Ireland, “Women’s Christmas” traditionally the men
    would take over home duties and the women would let their hair down.

    Anyhow...Epiphany is actually a public holiday in quite a few countries. Then the next day (7th) is Orthodox Christmas!

    --
    ‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
    How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
    (C. Moore)

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  • From Christian Weisgerber@21:1/5 to Ross Clark on Sun Jan 5 14:17:39 2025
    On 2025-01-05, Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> wrote:

    That means tomorrow is Epiphany (Greek epipháneia 'appearance'), commemorating the three kings/wise men coming to see baby Jesus.
    Called "Day of the Kings" and suchlike in some places.

    "Heilige drei Könige" (lit. 'holy three kings')
    Weird adjective ordering, now that I think about it.

    Anyhow...Epiphany is actually a public holiday in quite a few countries.

    Here in the Holy Roman Empire, each prince can choose the religious denomination and the public holidays of his fief. The neighboring
    principality appears to be even more Catholic than ours, so Epiphany
    is a holiday over the Rhine, but not here, much to the pleasure of
    the local retail trade.

    (Or at least that's part of the historical evolution why Epiphany
    is a holiday in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, but not in Rhineland-Palatinate.)

    --
    Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

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  • From Christian Weisgerber@21:1/5 to Christian Weisgerber on Sat Jan 11 19:08:33 2025
    On 2025-01-05, Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:

    Here in the Holy Roman Empire, each prince can choose the religious denomination and the public holidays of his fief.

    And I'm belatedly reminded of the proper name of this principle:
    "Cuius regio, eius religio"

    --
    Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

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