photo via www.etymonline.com
Thurs·day
ˈTHərzdā,-dē/
noun
noun: Thursday; plural noun: Thursdays
- 1.the day of the week before Friday and following Wednesday."the committee met on Thursday"
adverb
North American
adverb: Thursday
- 1.on Thursday."he called her up Thursday"
- on Thursdays; each Thursday.adverb: Thursdays"the column is published Thursdays"
Origin
Old English Thu(n)resdæg ‘day of thunder,’ named after Thunor or Thor, the Germanic god of thunder; translation of late Latin Jovis dies ‘day of Jupiter,’ Thor being equated with the Roman god Jupiter. Compare with Dutch donderdag and German Donnerstag .
Etymology- the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history.
I was on a rant earlier this morning on where the term 'Door Prize' came from. I mean really, when you think about it- shouldn't be called a ticket prize? Not everyone at the party that walks through the door gets a prize. I looked it up and found little information to my quest. The scraps of information formed the composite below:
The origin but it may have started around the time of 1878 and it was made popular in the 1950s when consumer spending increased in America. But that doesn't explain why they called it a door prize!
Anyhoo, we're going to apply these Thursday rants to common words but also weightlifting terms. This week it is the Clean. You may have heard of the this action making up the mega combo the clean and jerk.
The basics- the clean and jerk make up one of the two of the Olympic Lifts. It is comprised of two motions in order to move the weight from the ground to overhead. The clean portion is when the bar comes from the ground to rack position.
But why was it called a clean? Before the mid 1950s the movement could not touch your body thus making the movement 'clean.' Later on due to several circumstances, that may or may not be discussed in this blog later, you were later allowed to touch lower extremities in order to perform the lift. The name stayed the same over time and is still affectionately called the clean.
- The End-
-Source of information for article include: Don McCauley and Jon North from past seminars.
photo via www.etymonline.com