top of page
  • Paul Anthony Jones
    • May 22, 2015

Friday-faced

(adj.) miserable-looking

old style revolving paper desk calendar

(Etsy)

Today’s Word of the Day over at Haggard Hawks has caused a bit of a stir:

Quite right too: Friday is the stepping stone into the weekend (and if you’re reading this in the UK, you’ve got a bank holiday weekend to look forward to as well). So why so Friday-faced?

Well, one theory suggests this comes from nothing more than Friday being a traditionally unlucky day. Among sailors and travellers, it’s long been seen as bad luck to begin a voyage on a Friday (a belief that inspired this brilliant urban myth), and likewise Friday is also seen a traditionally inauspicious day on which to be married: the name Friday derives from that of the pagan goddess of beauty and fertility, Frigga, who would apparently become spitefully jealous of any brides wed on her special day.

But is general superstition and ill-starred folklore enough to make someone look gloomy? Probably not. Instead, Friday-faced likely derives from the fact that Friday is traditionally a day of fasting, penitence, and abstinence, a religious custom born out of the fact that Jesus is said to have died on a Friday. Although today it’s a tradition most closely associated with Catholicism, abstaining on (what is now) the final day of the working week is actually quite a widespread custom.

So if you’re Friday-faced, chances are you’re just hungry. But never mind—that’s what weekends are for.

Hi! We’re currently updating the HH blog, including all the tags (below). But with over 700 posts to reformat, well—apologies, this might take a while... 

​

For now, you can browse the back catalogue using all the tags from the blogposts we’ve already completed; this list will grow as more blogs are brought up to date.

 

Thanks for your patience in the meantime—and any problems or questions, just let us know at haggard@haggardhawks.com.

bottom of page