When your morning starts with this quote, it's hard to take things seriously.
“This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”
(Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)
I hope we are luckier, and today no Vogon constructor fleet is standing by to demolish our beloved planet. On the other hand, I think we do have paranoid androids, eccentric leaders, and human-like extraterrestrials all over the place, and perhaps it’s best to have a towel with us at all times. You never know when you can hitch a ride.
Let's jump into it!
Day of Jupiter
In addition to the two previous days of the week,
Thursday is named after a deity, Thor, god of thunder and lightning. Not unlike his father, Odin (Wotan, Wednesday), and Týr (Mars, Tuesday), he had his counterparts in Roman (Jupiter) and Greek (Zeus) mythology.
Most Germanic languages kept the tradition, e.g.
Torsdag (Danish),
Donderdag (Dutch).
The word originates from the Proto-West Germanic *
þunr (meaning thunder), developed into Old English
þunor, and Middle English
thonder. The original name of the day in Old English was
Þūnresdæg, Thor’s day.
Similarly, most Romance languages still name today after Jupiter;
dijous (Catalan),
jueves (Spanish). An exception is Portuguese; using the ecclesiastical names, today (
quinta-feira) marks the fifth of the week. In Arabic, Greek and Hebrew, it is also the fifth day. Both Islam and Judaism encourages worshippers to do voluntary fasting on this day.
In Slavic languages, the Baltic languages and in Chinese, the name of the day refers to ‘fourth’.
The Japanese word
Mokuyobi refers to the planet Jupiter (
Mokusei); the kanji meaning of
moku is wood, tree.
Bṛhaspativāsaram is the Sanskrit word for Thursday. Bṛhaspati may refer to a sage (one that counsels the gods), or to the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter, amongst other mythical figures. The Hindi word for Thursday is
Guruvaar.
The Aztecs named this day after Tezcatlipoca, god of providence.
Maundy
To offer water for the guests to wash their feet (and sometimes servants as well to carry out the cleansing), was a regular practice in ancient civilizations, especially in regions where people mostly wore sandals.
The origin of Maundy Thursday might be this custom. Washing of the Feet (Maundy) is an observation of Jesus Christ washing the feet of the Apostles. Maundy derives from Old French
mandé, which comes from Latin
mandatum, meaning command. The first word of the chapter sung at the ceremonies is
mandatum.
Csütörtök, the name of today (together with Wednesday and Friday) in Hungarian is a calque of Slavic origins.
In Sweden, today Ärtsoppa, pea soup is served. A tradition that stems from the Christian tradition of fasting on Fridays. Thursdays would have a festive ambiance, and peas were considered a luxury ingredient.
It wasn’t as sunny as yesterday. In the morning, a few quick showers made the vegetation noticeably happy, causing a steep decline in the amount of air traffic throughout the garden. The first batch of elderflowers are soaking, and tomorrow I’ll pick from the other side of the bush
Closing to midnight, the half of the week is certainly behind us.
But there are three more days (and what days!) to come.
Aphrodité, Freedom, Weekend..
Sleep well tonight!
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