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Information about Thursday

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The god Thor, after whom Thursday is named, by Mårten Eskil Winge, 1872


Thursday is the fourth day of the week in most western countries and the fifth day of the week in the Judeo-Christian calendar, falling between Wednesday and Friday. In countries that adopt the Sunday-first convention, it is considered the fifth day of the week. However, in ISO 8601 it is the fourth day of the week. In Slavic languages and in Chinese, this day's name is "fourth" (Polish czwartek, Russian четверг, pronounced CHET-vierg). Portuguese, too, uses a number for this day: quinta-feira, "fifth day", (see Days of the week for more on the different conventions).

The contemporary name comes from the Old English Şunresdæg (with loss of -n-, first in northern dialects, from influence of Old Norse Şorsdagr), meaning "Day of Thunor", this being a rough Germanic equivalent to the Latin Iovis Dies, "Jupiter's Day". Most Germanic and Romance-speaking countries use their languages' equivalents: German Donnerstag, torsdag in Scandinavia, Italian giovedì, Spanish jueves, French jeudi, Catalan dijous, and Romanian joi. The Hindi word for Thursday is Guruvar, with Guru being the Sanskrit name for the planet Jupiter.

In Thailand, the color associated with Thursday is orange, see Thai solar calendar.

Thursday in religion

In the Hindu religion, Thursday is Guruvaar, from Guru, the Sanskrit name for Jupiter, the largest of planets. Guruvaar fasting is very common in the various parts of north India.

Quakers traditionally refer to Thursday as "Fifth Day" eschewing the pagan origin of the name "Thursday". The name of the day is also called by words meaning "fifth day" in Icelandic, Modern Greek, Portuguese, and modern Semitic languages.

In the Christian tradition, Maundy Thursday is the Thursday before Easter — the day on which the Last Supper occurred. Ascension Thursday is the day 40 days after Easter, when Christ ascended into Heaven.

In the United States, Thanksgiving Day is an annual festival celebrated on a Thursday in November, currently the fourth Thursday.

A religion (which is a joke version of omphalism) known as Last Thursdayism teaches that the world was created last Thursday, but with the appearance of age: people's memories, history books, fossils, light already on the way from distant stars, and so forth.

Thursday in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, all general elections since 1935 have been held on a Thursday, and this has become a tradition, although not a requirement of the law — which only states that an election may be held on any day "except Saturdays, Sundays, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, bank holidays in any part of the United Kingdom and any day appointed for public thanksgiving and mourning". An explanation sometimes given for the choice of Thursday as polling day is that it was, in most towns, the traditional market day, although it has also been observed that the choice has practical advantages — with the outcome of the election being known by Friday, the new or continuing administration then has the weekend to organise itself in preparation for the "government shop opening for business" on Monday, the first day of the new week following the election.

Additionally, local elections are usually held on the first Thursday in May.

The Thursday before Easter is also known as Maundy Thursday or Sheer Thursday in the United Kingdom, traditionally a day of cleaning and giving out Maundy money.

Note

In Latin the Genitive or possessive case of Jupiter was Jovis and as such in most Romance languages with the exception of Portuguese it became the word for Thursday: Latin Jovis Dies, Spanish Jueves, Italian Giovedi, and Rumanian Jiuvidi.

Astrological and Astronomical sign

The astrological and astronomical sign of the planet Jupiter () represents Thursday with similar names in Latin-derived languages, such as the French Jeudi. In English, this became "Thor's Day," since the Roman god Jupiter was identified with Thor in northern Europe.

Thursday in popular culture

In the nursery rhyme, "Thursday's Child has far to go".

Gabriel Syme, the main character was given the title of Thursday in G. K. Chesterton's novel "The Man Who Was Thursday."

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, the character Arthur Dent says "This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays". A few minutes later the planet Earth is destroyed. Thor, for whom the day was named, also appears later in the Hitchhiker's series and in other Adams books. Appropriately, in The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul, one of the characters says to Thor: "I'm not used to spending the evening with someone who's got a whole day named after them".

In the cross media work Thursday's fictions by Richard James Allen and Karen Pearlman, Thursday is the title character, a woman who tries to cheat the cycle of reincarnation to get a form of eternal life. Thursday's Fictions which has been a stage production, a book, a film and an 3D online immersive world in Second Life.[1]

Thursday is sometimes referred to as "Friday Eve" in anticipation for the end of the work week on Friday.

Thursday is a post-hardcore band from New Brunswick, New Jersey, formed in 1997.

Thursday's Child is a David Bowie song from the album hours...(1999).

Thursday's Child is also a song by The Chameleons in Script of the Bridge (1983).

In Neil Gaiman's American Gods, when Wednesday introduces himself, he remarks that given the weather (he and the main character are flying in a thunderstorm), it could be Thursday, as Thor was the god of thunder.

Outlook for Thursday was a hit in New Zealand for Dave Dobbyn.

"Thursday" is the name of an episode of Strange Days at Blake Holsey High. In the episode Corrine Baxter finds herself trapped in the same day over and over again, similar to the premise of the film Groundhog Day.

"Thursday Next" is the central character in a series of novels by Jasper Fforde.

In high schools in the United States during the 1960s, it was widely believed that if someone wore green on Thursdays, it meant that they were gay. [2]

"Thursday" is an NPC in the online game Dragonfable.

In "Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella)," Truman Capote writes of Holly Golightly: "'Thursday.' She stood up. 'My God,' she said, and sat down again with a moan. 'It's too gruesome.'"

Thursday is the day of the Second Round draw in the English League Cup.

BBC TWO's new comedy zone is named "THURSDAYS ARE FUNNY".

Named days

References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ Grahn, Judy Another Mother Tongue New York:1990--Beacon Press: This book discusses the origins of this curious belief.

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Days of the week
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Friday (pronunciation IPA: /ˈfraɪdeɪ, ˈfraɪdi/) is the day of the week falling between Thursday and Saturday. It is the sixth day in countries that adopt a Sunday-first convention.
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  • THOR (Tracing Habitability, Organics, and Resources) is a proposal by researchers at Arizona State University to drop a copper ball from orbit onto the surface of Mars in order to study the composition of the first few meters of the surface. http://www.newscientistspace.

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In Hindi, or the Gujarati language (ગુજરાતી), the term for Thursday, the fourth day of the week.[1] Intriguingly, just like with Thursday in English this word also refers to the fifth planet from the sun, Jupiter (Jupiter is the fifth
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Sanskrit}}}  | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" | Writing system: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" | Devanāgarī and several other Brāhmī-based scripts  ! colspan="3" style="text-align: center; color: black; background-color: lawngreen;"|Official
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Maundy Thursday — also called Holy Thursday and, in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, Great Thursday — is the feast or holy day on the Thursday before Easter that commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles.
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Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks, traditionally to God, for the things one has at the end of the harvest season. In the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.
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The omphalos hypothesis was named after the title of an 1857 book, Creation (Omphalos) by Philip Henry Gosse, in which Gosse argued that in order for the world to be "functional", God must have created the Earth with mountains
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Last Thursdayism (sometimes Last Tuesdayism or Last Wednesdayism) is a version of omphalism, and of Bertrand Russell's Five minute hypothesis. It is the idea that the world was created last Thursday, but with the appearance of age: people's memories, history books, fossils, light
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