Wednesday

Derived from the Old English Wōdnesdæg, Odin’s Day. A Norse god of complexity and contradiction, war and wisdom.

In the Romance languages, mercoledì, miércoles, and mercredi, named for Mercury. A Roman god of trade and travel.

These gods, it seems, aren’t on my side. Wednesdays have been a struggle for me. I could use a little wisdom, a lot more focus, maybe some guidance on Wednesday.

German gives us the transcendentally simple Mittwoch, which translates to “mid-week”. Russian is the same, Среда (Sreda), “the middle”. In Hebrew, יום רביעי (Yom Revi’i) is “fourth day”, and so is the Greek Τετάρτη (Tetárti). 星期三 (Xīngqīsān) is the Chinese “third day”.

None of these clinical descriptions of Wednesday adequately describe the limbo of being neither at the beginning nor quite near the end of the week.

Isn’t it just mad that the world operates on a seven day week? A gift from Judaism that is so embedded in the modern world that it’s hard to even imagine organising our calendar in any other way. Did you know that the ancient Egyptians had a 10 day week? They even retained it under Alexander’s conquest.

In 1793, France introduced decimal time. A day was 10 hours long, each hour divided into 100 minutes, and each minute divided into 100 seconds (1 decimal second works out to be 0.864 standard seconds). The whole thing lasted 2 years.

But Wednesday. Market Day.

In medieval Europe, merchants, farmers, and crafters would pause work on Wednesday, to sell their goods in marketplaces. Wednesday markets are still common in England and France. Its position in the working week is perfect for a break in routine.

But to truly understand the nature of Wednesday, we must turn to colloquialism. Germans use the hilarious Bergfest, meaning “mountain festival”, similar to the English “hump day”. Italian has the all-too-real giorno di fatica, “struggle day”. Japanese take it up a notch with 水曜地獄 (Suiyō Jigoku) “Wednesday Hell”.

But the award for best Wednesday word goes to Russian, which manages to perfectly reflect a Wednesday vibe with just two words: Маленькая пятница (Malen’kaya pyatnitsa). “Little Friday”.