Welcome to the MedLibrary.org Wikipedia Supplement on Monday -- Please Click to Return to Front Page

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (October 2008)

Galileo's 1616 drawings of the Moon and its phases. Monday is named after the Moon in many cultures.

Monday (pron. IPA: /ˈmʌndeɪ, ˈmʌndi/) is a day of the week between Sunday and Tuesday.

Etymology

A depiction of Máni, the personified moon, and his sister Sól, the personified sun, from Norse mythology (1895) by Lorenz Frølich.

The English noun Monday derived sometime before 1200 from monedæi, which itself developed from Old English (around 1000) mōnandæg and mōndæg (literally meaning "day of the moon"), which is cognate to other Germanic languages, including Old Frisian mōnadeig, Middle Low German and Middle Dutch mānendach (modern Dutch Maandag), Old High German mānetag (modern German Montag), and Old Norse mānadagr (Swedish måndag, and Danish and Norwegian manadag). The Germanic term is a Germanic interpretation of Latin lunae dies ("day of the moon").^[1]

The Russian word, eschewing pagan names, is понедельник (poniediélnik), meaning "after Sunday." In most of the Indian Languages, the word for Monday is Somvar, with Soma being the Sanskrit name for the moon. The Japanese word for Monday is getsuyōbi (月曜日) which means day of the moon.

Position in the week

In some cultures, Monday is held to be the first day of the week. In Asia – because the western calendar system was introduced only during the 20th century – many languages refer to Monday as the "day of the beginning". For example, Monday is xingqi yi (星期一) in Chinese, meaning day one of the week. The international standard, ISO 8601, defines Monday as the first day of the week.

But according to the Judeo-Christian count, Monday is the second day, the first being Sunday. This is also the standard format in Canada and the United States. Its name in Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, Portuguese and Syriac means "second day". Quakers also traditionally refer to Monday as "Second Day" eschewing the pagan origin of the English name "Monday". For similar reasons the official liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church refers to Monday as "Feria II". (The Portuguese name for Monday reflects this, as do all the days' names except Saturday and Sunday: the Portuguese word for Monday is segunda-feira.)

Modern culture usually looks at Monday as the beginning of the workweek, as it is typically Monday when adults go back to work and children back to school after the weekend. Thus, Mondays are often seen as a misfortune. In Middle Eastern countries, however, the beginning of the workweek is usually Saturday (Thursday and Friday are observed as the weekend). In Israel, Sunday is the first day of the workweek. Friday is half a work day and Friday night and Saturday are the Sabbath.

Religious observances

In Judaism and Islam Mondays are considered auspicious days for fasting. The Didache warned early Christians not to fast on Mondays to avoid Judaizing, and suggests Wednesdays instead.

In Judaism the Torah is read in public on Monday mornings, and special penitential prayers are said on Monday, unless there is a special occasion for happiness which cancels them.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church Mondays are days on which the Angels are commemorated. The Octoechos contains hymns on this theme, arranged in an eight-week cycle, that are chanted on Mondays throughout the year. At the end of Divine Services on Monday, the dismissal begins with the words: "May Christ our True God, through the intercessions of his most-pure Mother, of the honorable, Bodiless Powers (i.e., the angels) of Heaven…". In many Eastern monasteries Mondays are observed as fast days; because Mondays are dedicated to the angels, and monks strive to live an angelic life. In these monasteries the monks abstain from meat, fowl, dairy products, fish, wine and oil (if a feast day occurs on a Monday, fish, wine and oil may be allowed, depending upon the particular feast).

Cultural references

This postcard, sent in 1907 and captioned "Monday Morning in N. Y. City", reflects the tradition of Monday as a day for washing clothes

In the folk rhyme, "Monday's child is fair of face".

In Thailand, the color associated with Monday is yellow, see Thai solar calendar

The Boomtown Rats have a famous song called "I Don't Like Mondays".

Through the movie Office Space the quote "Someone is having a case of the Mondays!" entered the pop culture lexicon.

In the Garfield Comics and Shows, one of the things Garfield hates is Monday

Monday in different languages

Common occurences

Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (April 2008)

Astrology

Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (April 2008)

Named days

• Big Monday
• Black Monday
• Blue Monday
• Clean Monday (Ash Monday)
• Cyber Monday
• Easter Monday also Bright Monday or Wet Monday
• First Monday
• Handsel Monday
• Miracle Monday
• Plough Monday
• Shrove Monday
• Weather Market Monday. The day when commodity markets add or subtract weather premium.
• Wet Monday
• Whit Monday

See also

Look up Monday in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Monday Club
• Monday demonstrations
• Monday Night Football
• Monday Night Wars
• Monday Night Raw
• Saint Monday

Notes

References

• Barnhart, Robert K. (1995). The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology. Harper Collins. ISBN 0062700847

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 10 October 2008, at 23:52.

Wikipedia Authorship and Review

Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.

Wikipedia Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Monday".

The URL for this specific entry is:

• http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/Monday

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.