HOLIDAY

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Slava
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HOLIDAY

Postby Slava » Fri Jul 05, 2013 6:14 am

• holiday •

Pronunciation: hah-lê-day • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A day of leisure, away from work, usually to celebrate a historical event, as the Fourth of July holiday. 2. (British) A vacation, as in, "We are on holiday."

Notes: Speakers of British English may use today's Good Word as a verb in the second sense, as to holiday in the Seychelles. Since the second meaning allows verbal use, we may use holidayer in that sense only, though holidaymaker is much more widely used in referring to vacationers.

In Play: The American sense of the word usually refers to a single day: "Every Monday is a holiday for Tom Collins: he celebrates the hangover he put on over the weekend." The British sense of today's Good Word is a bit different: "I'm holidaying this year at home with the kids, while the wife goes on holiday for a respite from them."

Word History: Around 1200 today's Good Word was spelled haliday, a spelling that survives today as a surname. This word descended from Old English haligdæg "holy day; Sabbath", from halig "holy" + dæg "day". It wasn't until the 14th century that the sense moved on to "religious festival", and then to "day of recreation". Proto-Germanic hailaga-, where Old English halig came from, also produced the verb hallow in "hallowed be thy name". German heilig "holy" comes from the same ancient root. Old English dæg "day" came from the Proto-Indo-European word for "burn, heat". The related word in Sanskrit, which seems to have derived from the same PIE word, was dahah "heat, burning". The sense of today's word probably migrated to "day" in the Germanic languages because the middle of the day is the hottest moment of a day. (Thanks to Michael Martin for suggesting today's festive Good Word. May he have happy holidays all year long.)

LukeJavan8
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Re: HOLIDAY

Postby LukeJavan8 » Fri Jul 05, 2013 12:46 pm

And I hope every one had a safe one yesterday.
And it it's a four day weekend for you, then lucky you.
-----please, draw me a sheep-----

Perry Lassiter
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Re: HOLIDAY

Postby Perry Lassiter » Fri Jul 05, 2013 1:03 pm

It always jars me when a British novel says, "I'm going on holiday." i wonder if you English are equally disconcerted when an American says, "I'm going on vacation"?
pl

David Myer
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Re: HOLIDAY

Postby David Myer » Sun Jul 07, 2013 7:43 am

During my involvement in the civil engineering game, I came across a machine called a holiday detector. Its purpose was to check large diameter pipelines for flaws (holidays?) in their coatings (presumably potential corrosion points). Has anyone else come across that usage? I wonder if it is in some way related.

David

Perry Lassiter
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Re: HOLIDAY

Postby Perry Lassiter » Sun Jul 07, 2013 1:22 pm

Meaning manufacture or quality control took a holiday?
I once read serious advice not to buy a car made on Monday or Friday, as the weekend holiday coming or going makes for shoddy work in some of the crews. I think you can tell the day by the VIN.
pl

David Myer
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Re: HOLIDAY

Postby David Myer » Sun Jul 07, 2013 7:31 pm

I'm not sure robots know the difference between Mondays and Tuesdays! Perhaps the advice is no longer as valid as it was when real people made cars. But I have heard that 40% of heart attacks occur on Mondays, and of course robots don't tend to have them...


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