h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Cor blimey!
And not an loyal Englishman here-about to remind us that today is Queen Victoria's birthday!

"The 24th of May is fire-cracker day.
We all go out to play on the Queen's birthday."

So went the schoolboy's rime when I was a sprite, here in Canada.
It's been a national holiday here for about 150 years, now celebrated the third Monday in May just prior to the 24th. So today is just another working day for Canucks, but it's been a short week.

Happy birthday Vicky!

Ah whit friday, brass band contests in little hillside villages. Much beer to be consumed. Whit walks, big church banners and all that.

Leading on from some reminices, why are wakes weeks so called?
I know that there is a wake trailing from a boat and also one when someone dies, but for shutting up the factories for a week?

Made a wakes of the profit forecast?

[God the backlog's huge if I take a day off - thanx for the backpointing and coffeeward pointing]
Whit means white, because the people baptised on that day wore white.So did girls getting married. Good day for it as you might have a holiday anyway and the weather had a fair chance of being reasonable ( Also in "whitlow" a white flaw near your nail.)
Wakes walk because you walked in a wake behind the priest?? ()

The concepts of Mothering Sunday and Mother's Day are two different things.

According to a book I have somewhere, Mothering Sunday was, up to about 100-150 years ago, the only day that servants had off during the year. This is because everybody was expected to go to their Mother Church on that Sunday. That is, the Church where the Bishop presided, instead of the local parish church. So it took a lot of travelling and the service was probably very very long, too. And it had nothing directly to do with mothers.

When I worked in Spain, the staff were allowed to go to Mass on Sunday mornings, of course, and all the sisters of our maid (I was the au pair, don't get any ideas!) would come round, giggling, in their best clothes. They talked and chattered all through Mass, so I can imagine that these Mothering Sunday gatherings were very jolly family reunions, too.

Mother's Day was invented around the turn of the century, in America. It is celebrated very elaborately in Germany, on the same day as in America (we only just had it, but I wasn't here). There is a special service in Church, and the children sing their little songs and put on plays. I would be interested to know if it isn't an older tradition in France, though, as they celebrate it, too, but I can't imagine it being so new there. It is traditional in France to give your mother a bunch of lily-of-the-valley (muguet is their word for it, Maiglöckchen - little May bells - is the unimaginative German name for it)

And if Whit means white, which is what I always thought it did, where does "a whit" - meaning a tiny piece - come from?

Obviously different from an Irish wake, then, where you stand, drink and fall down.

I am confused by references in recent postings to wake week and wake walk. Are these phrases that I don't know about? Are they British English?

Whit, a tiny piece, seems to come from wight, a creature or thing, in its original Old English spelling of wiht.

No idea - never heard of them either. Perhaps they're indigenous to Wakefield?

Well in the UK, at least, Mothers Day and Mothering Sunday are the same thing - Maybe the relatively new invention of Mothers Day(which I have always taken to be a shortening of Mothering Sunday) is just celebrated on the same day(in the UK) - half way through Lent - but I was always taught that Mothering Sunday was the correct term for Mother's Day.

I thought that Mother's Day/Mothering Sunday had been around for ages - the Americans moved it for their own reasons (commercial probably) just as they invented Father's Day, GrandDad's Day, Uncle Herbert the Swivelling Monster's day, Secretary's Day, etc... - mainly inventions of the Card Companies to fleece us of more money!!! Which are trying hard to invade our Shops and culture as well - I for one am not falling for it! (sorry Rant over...)

I add to the clamour wanting to know what wakes week is. I never heard of it in the Great White North. Is this another strange English tradition I can point at and make crass and unfunny jokes about?

A "wakes week" is a traditional religious/country fair type festival that was common in the 1700s but is rare enough now. The Spon End wake week [No URL because you are all old enough to use a search engine] is one of the few documented and a great example of British Eccentricity (madness) :

"At its high point the Wakes Week culminated with a procession of flags attended by a lady on horseback re-enacting Lady Godiva, pony races, flower shows and an ox roasting. "

That was the first one I found when looking it up in a search engine as well
The wakes weeks were, certainly round where I grew up, when all the factories in the town shut down and everyone had a week off. Try looking up "oldham wakes" in your favourite search engine. The different towns would each have a different week.
It does seem that they predate the industrial revolution as shown by .'s comment.

Aaaaaaa, The Fair.
In Scotland these are known as Fair weeks'/fortnights and are still going to this day. Where I went to school got the Kilmarnock Fair, which was the first two weeks in July, and EVERYONE went on holiday. Except of course us, as my parents always went on holiday with Wegies during the Glasgow Fair, the second two weeks of July. I think they get named after the market town nearest you, so, the Aberdeen fair may well coincide wth these others, but as a phenomenon will be unheard of in the south of Scotland.
The first weekend of the fortnight was known as Fair weekend. In Victorian, workhouse, days, you only got the Fair weekend as holiday, but this included both the Friday and the Monday. At the turn of the last century it was a fact that, for Fair Weekend, all of Glasgow shut down and went "doon the waater" to Largs, Millport, Rothsay or, if you were very exotic, Arran.
While the towns remain open these days, the majority of people will still take these two weeks off.
This, different areas get different holidays, also applies to Scottish bank holidays, with the second May bank holiday being anywhere in May, depending on where you live. Hence I used to get three Mondays off school in May, May Day, the Kilmarnock Spring Bank Holiday and the Glasgow Spring Bank Holiday (as my parents went "doon the waater" with Wegies then too).

As far as I know the story of Wakes and Wakes Weeks goes something like this. Wake come from the Saxon `woeccan` and in its original sense meant to keep a vigil. The custom of holding a wake grew up around the religious practice of keeping a watch or vigil church before holy days or church dedication days. This practice became associated with crusading ideals and chivalry from the 11thC onwards.

In time revelries and fairs started to be held before the holy festivals and ultimately became synonymous with these events

Eventually the celebrations persisted long after the Holy days ceased to be held and there you have yer Wakes Weeks.

Red

Sorry about replying belatedly to this, but I've not been in for quite a while and only just waded through a 2-week-backlog.
TC must have misread (or misheard) when she wanted vol-au-vent: the Fench call it "bouchées de reine" (notice the "é"). "Bouche" means indeed mouth, but "bouchée" means mouthful.
"A queen's mouthful" sounds a lot more appetizing (imho) than "the queen's mouth"...

(I guess the next time I manage to drop by, I'll have to wade through several pages again...)

And it seems that wakefield was the place where the wakes/fairs were held a long long time ago.

BTW, "bouchées de reine" is indeed the correct name for the dish, and you don't want to know where "vol-au-vent" comes from!

BTW, "bouchées de reine" is indeed the correct name for the dish, and you don't want to know why it got called "vol-au-vent" (although I'm certain you can guess).

On Fairs ...
Sometimes 'fair' is spelt 'farye' - is there a good reason for this, or is it just an affectation to imply something old & traditional ?

On Food (one of my favourite things) ...
What do the French (or other Non-Brit English speakers) call "quiche" ?

On tangets ...
Some one in the office just described her Gran as "going hell for leather" since she recovered from her illness (also come accross "L for leather" !). Origins ?