Ross Clark
2025-01-05 10:26:56 UTC
It was a bit of a chore last year, squeezing some linguistic interest
out of all the fake "days" and deaths/births of literary figures that
Crystal chose to include in his book.
But I recently came across a list of national holidays in a lot of
countries. (Actually it came inside a 2025 calendar I bought in Canada.)
This set off some primal urge to wallow in data. Then I found a
staggeringly comprehensive site with information about them all:
https://www.officeholidays.com/countries
This calmed me down a lot. So I'll confine myself to occasional
observations as the days go by, and hopefully some flashes of linguistic
interest.
For example, here in New Zealand it's January 5, which is the Twelfth
Day of Christmas (where the song ends), and in fact since it's 11pm,
it's Twelfth Night!
That means tomorrow is Epiphany (Greek epipháneia 'appearance'),
commemorating the three kings/wise men coming to see baby Jesus.
Called "Day of the Kings" and suchlike in some places. The "Three
Kings", small islands at the north end of New Zealand, were so called by
Abel Tasman because he first saw them on that day.
Anyhow...Epiphany is actually a public holiday in quite a few countries.
Then the next day (7th) is Orthodox Christmas!
out of all the fake "days" and deaths/births of literary figures that
Crystal chose to include in his book.
But I recently came across a list of national holidays in a lot of
countries. (Actually it came inside a 2025 calendar I bought in Canada.)
This set off some primal urge to wallow in data. Then I found a
staggeringly comprehensive site with information about them all:
https://www.officeholidays.com/countries
This calmed me down a lot. So I'll confine myself to occasional
observations as the days go by, and hopefully some flashes of linguistic
interest.
For example, here in New Zealand it's January 5, which is the Twelfth
Day of Christmas (where the song ends), and in fact since it's 11pm,
it's Twelfth Night!
That means tomorrow is Epiphany (Greek epipháneia 'appearance'),
commemorating the three kings/wise men coming to see baby Jesus.
Called "Day of the Kings" and suchlike in some places. The "Three
Kings", small islands at the north end of New Zealand, were so called by
Abel Tasman because he first saw them on that day.
Anyhow...Epiphany is actually a public holiday in quite a few countries.
Then the next day (7th) is Orthodox Christmas!