Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Three, Anyone?

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Well, my dears, it's Tuesday again. Monday is over, which is excellent, and it's the day before Hump Day, which is even better.

Did you know that the Portuguese use numbers instead of pagan names and so their word for "Tuesday" is terça-feira, "the third day," Sunday being the first day of the liturgical week)?

Or that The Greek word for "Tuesday" is Triti, meaning "third," counting Tuesday as the third day of the week?

The Hebrew word for "Tuesday" is Yom Shlishi (יום שלישי) which translates to "third day," counting Tuesday as the third day of the week, and the Arabic word for "Tuesday" is yawm ath-thulaathaaʼ يوم الثلاثاء (Urdu, Mangl منگل) (Persian: Seh-Shanbeh, سه شنبه), meaning "third day," also counting Tuesday as the third day of the week.

But then we have the Russians whose word for "Tuesday" is vtórnik, which means "second." Those Russians just had to be different, counting Tuesday as the second day of the week. And there go the threes.

But the Quakers balance back the Feng Shui of the threes by referring to Tuesday as "Third Day" in an effort to negate the pagan origin of the English name "Tuesday." This has also been the custom in Iceland since about the 11th century when Jón Ögmundsson changed it to Þriðjudagur, meaning "Third Day."

Ergo, the universal consensus is that Tuesday is the third day of the week. Three is a lucky number; therefore, Tuesday should have a little of that luck rubbing off on it. Yes?

Have a marvelous (and lucky!) Tuesday.

6 comments:

G-Man said...

I don't know if I've ever been lucky on Tuesday. Although I DID buy a Mega Millions Lotto ticket for tonight!
Saturdays have been particularly lucky for me in the past. A couple of Saturday's back to be exact!!
:P

NYD said...

In Lilliput they call it 火曜日Ka-yo-bi and it means the day of fire.

Hope you're on fire today, SJ.

Serena said...

Well, I hope you win that Mega Millions, Galen. That would be mondo cool. And on a Tuesday, yet. Yeah!:-)

Day of Fire -- I like that, NYD. We're having lightning right now, so it's kind of literally a Day of Fire. And if it strikes me, yep, I'll be on fire.:-)

Anonymous said...

well,
this blog
just gets better
and better all the time

first crotch crickets and now 火曜日Ka-yo-bi

HAVE YO AN AWESOME DAY 3 SERENA JOY!

¤ ¤ ¤

/t.

quid said...

Interesting piece. I'm thinkin' the Russians are just being obstinate.

quid

Serena said...

Thank you very much, /t. Threes are awesome in and of themselves, so the third anything has to be fairly lucky. Tuesday-Third Day-Fire Day may be getting a bad rap as a boring day of the week when it's actually quite serene and tranquil and a day to be prized. Wishing you an awesome Day 3!:)

Thanks, Quid. Yeah, those Russians. It's probably ingrained in their Tartar souls to be obstinate. They do make a nice Vodka, so I guess we can give 'em Tuesday.:-)