Day Idioms

Several words have become part of the language in being used in phrases. Last time we looked at ‘night’ and now look at ‘day’.

Day-to-day, meaning ‘daily’, has been known since early Saxon times, although today we would use day-by-day and we have since the late 14th century.

All day meaning ‘all the time’ dates from the 14th century.

Nobody described a day from work as ‘a day off’ until 1883.

The Beatles may have released Day Tripper in 1966, but the term had been used since 1897.

Nowadays may be perceived as a fairly modern term, and yet it has been recorded for at least eight centuries.

All in a day’s work dates from around 1820.

While it may seem to be as much a list of song titles, these are idioms, and next is Those Were the Days, first seen in 1907 and a Paul McCartney song recorded by Mary Hopkin in 1969.

Buddy Holly recorded That’ll be the Day as Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes in 1956, and as Buddy Holly and the Crickets the following year. This is not long after the first record of the phrase, in 1941.

Nobody called it a day until 1919, although earlier we had been calling it a half day since 1838.

One of These Days, a 1971 track from Pink Floyd, dates from the late 15th century.

Nobody had one of those days for the first time in 1936. And in 2002 Whitney Houston recorded One of Those Days

Daydreams have been recorded since the 1680s.

Daymares, ie nightmares while awake, have been written about since 1737.

May Day has been celebrated throughout Europe to mark the opening of the season of flowers and fruit. May Day is marked on the First of May, another song, this released in 1969 by the Bee Gees.

No child was put in daycare until 1943.

Boxing Day is the first weekday after Christmas (you can’t have Boxing Day on a Sunday) is first spoken of in 1809, although the custom giving its name is certainly much older.

Quarter Days – Lady Day on March 25th; Midsummer Day on June 24th, Michaelmas Day on September 29th, and Christmas Day on December 25th – mark the four dates when contracts and leases begin or expire in England. Scotland marks the same days as the pre-Christian calendar of Candlemas, Whitsunday, Lammas, and Martinmas.

The present day has been spoken of since 18970.

Play days, now associated with children, has been said to be a day exempt from work since around 1600.

Latterday is a term dating from 1842, this taken directly from the Jesus Christ Church of Latterday Saints in 1830.

Bank Holiday

This year, when we had an extra bank holiday in June to mark the Platinum Jubilee of her Majesty, we in England have an extra day added to the eight we normally get, Scotland get nine annually, and Northrn Ireland ten each year. It is no coincidence that I mention Bank Holidays, for it was 150 years this year that the first bank holiday was celebrated in the UK.

As Christmas Day and Good Friday had been common law holidays for hundreds of years, the idea of a Bank Holiday gave nominated days in the calendar the same status - that no payments or perform any task could be forced upon anyone that could not be forced on them on Christmas Day or Good Friday. Introduced by Liberal politican Sir John Lubbock, the Act dated December 1871 gave Easter Monday, Whit Monday, Boxing Day and the First Monday in August as holidays in England, Wales and Ireland; while Scotland had New Year's Day, Good Friday, First Monday in May, First Monday in August, and Christmas Day.

Since then St Patrick's Day was added in Ireland in 1903, New Year's Day in England in 1974; and Boxing Day in Scotland also added in 1974. From 1965, and initially as an experiment, the August Bank Holiday was moved to the last Monday in August in order to shorten the gap between August Bank Holiday and Christmas. For those first few years, Parliament would announce the date of August Bank Holiday each year. Yet the date would be based on the last Saturday in August, which resulted in August Bank Holiday in the years 1968 and 1969 falling in September. Eventually England, Wales and ireland had the August Bank Holiday moved permanently to the end of August, although Scotland retains the original first Monday to this day.

St Andrews Day has been a bank holiday in Scotland since 2007, and there is currently talk of doing the same for St George's Day in England and St David's Day in Wales. Correctly these, and the other days, are no longer bank holidays, for the Bank Holidays Act of 1871 was repealed in 1971 and superseded by the Banking and Financial Dealings Act of 1971. No surprise that title never caught on.