# I pit the following "cutesy" holiday nicknames **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 24, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942 "2011-11-24T01:44:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Horseface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/4af34b/32.png) [@Horseface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horseface)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/41 "2011-11-25T19:16:27Z")
How about calling Halloween a “harvest/fall celebration” or Christmas being called X-mas. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/42 "2011-11-25T20:17:55Z")
I prefer to call halloween Samhain, myself. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/43 "2011-11-25T20:27:08Z")
> [@Horseface](#): > > How about calling Halloween a “harvest/fall celebration” or Christmas being called X-mas. Because Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are all harvest festivals. Just depends on your climate. ---
**Author:** ![Peeta\_Mellark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@Peeta\_Mellark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peeta_Mellark)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/44 "2011-11-25T20:48:10Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > **Fat Tuesday**. Yes, we KNOW that’s what “Mardi Gras” means in English. It doesn’t make you smart to point it out and it’s not any more clever than saying you’re celebrating Fifth of May, or Hallowed Eve, or Fifty-Days. The day itself is called Fat Tuesday in the Gulf Coast area, because “Mardi Gras” is used to refer to Carnival in general. It has a specific meaning. If you don’t have any ties to the cultural trappings surrounding it and you’re not talking about going down to NOLA for Fat Tuesday, OK, whatever. It’d be obnoxiously nitpicky to insist the day had to be called Mardi Gras in a place where the entirety of Carnival has been slapped with that label, though. ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/45 "2011-11-26T05:56:17Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > I thought Andy Rooney was dead! > > Why do they insist on calling New Year’s Eve “Get drunk and fuck night”? They get invited to the right parties! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Teufelblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@Teufelblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teufelblitz)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/46 "2011-11-26T11:26:07Z")
When I was younger, I recall the news always touting the day after Thanksgiving as the busiest shopping day of the year. Black Friday as a name for that day came along fairly recently. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/47 "2011-11-26T12:19:31Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I’ve done all my Xmas shopping, and my freezer and pantry are full. This year, again, I won’t be shopping for ANYTHING except perishable staples like milk and eggs. I will be staying out of just about every store. I will especially avoid shopping today and tomorrow and throughout the weekend. I can understand staying away from the mall, the big-box stores, etc. But since you brought up groceries, what’s the deal there? Grocery stores tend to be, if anything, a bit _quieter_ than usual on the day after Thanksgiving. First of all, the time to avoid grocery stores is on the two days _before_ Thanksgiving, when everybody’s buying stuff for T-day dinner; second, everybody who had T-day dinner at their place probably has a ton of leftovers and is in no hurry to go grocery shopping; and third, if they’re shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, they’re probably at the sorts of stores that have Black Friday sales, leaving the grocery stores mercifully uncrowded, yet normally staffed. The Firebug and I went grocery shopping yesterday afternoon, and were in and out of there in no time flat. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/48 "2011-11-26T12:53:17Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Every year around we have to listen to TV commentators, DJs, and stupid people in general who think they’re being clever or witty by referring to holidays by the same insipid nicknames people have been using for decades. Or (in the case of Turkey Day and Fat Tuesday, at least) maybe they’re trying, as broadcasters quite sensibly will, to avoid using the same word over and over again. Synonyms are good. When come back, bring alternatives. In the case of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, these really are the only names we have for these pseudo-events. (“The Day After Thanksgiving” is a bit unwieldy for broadcast purposes, and doesn’t point to the retailing aspect of the day in particular.) > [@](#): > > **The unofficial beginning/end of summer**. You’re off by about a month in either direction. Depends on where you are, I suppose. Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends are when the public and community swimming pools open and close in much of the country. If you’re looking for a better unofficial definition of summer than “when it’s warm enough to go swimming,” I can’t think of one. It’s the _official_ definitions of the seasons, in terms of the solstices and equinoxes, that reek. > [@](#): > > **Patriot’s Day**. I’m thankful that this one hasn’t caught on, but I suspect that’s only because Madison Avenue hasn’t figured out a way to entice the public down to their big 9/11 sale at Macy’s. Yes, this one’s hideous, one of the lesser atrocities of the Bush Administration. There’s nothing patriotic about 3,000 of your fellow citizens getting killed by terrorists. If an American city ever gets nuked, would we call that “SuperDuper Wave-That-Flag Patriot Day”? They should have taken their cue from the historical precedent of the attack on Pearl Harbor. No cutesy nicknames, just “a day that will live in infamy.” At least “Patriot Day” hasn’t caught on, either with the general public or with retailers. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/49 "2011-11-26T14:07:48Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > I can understand staying away from the mall, the big-box stores, etc. > > But since you brought up groceries, what’s the deal there? Grocery stores tend to be, if anything, a bit _quieter_ than usual on the day after Thanksgiving. First of all, the time to avoid grocery stores is on the two days _before_ Thanksgiving, when everybody’s buying stuff for T-day dinner; second, everybody who had T-day dinner at their place probably has a ton of leftovers and is in no hurry to go grocery shopping; and third, if they’re shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, they’re probably at the sorts of stores that have Black Friday sales, leaving the grocery stores mercifully uncrowded, yet normally staffed. > > The Firebug and I went grocery shopping yesterday afternoon, and were in and out of there in no time flat. It’s just part of my general response to all the Black Friday/Xmas shopping season nonsense. It’s also because I want to clean out my pantry and fridge, and since I don’t do Lent, this is a good time for me to do it. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/50 "2011-11-27T01:42:02Z")
I’m inspired now. This Chistmas I’m telling my kids were celebrating: Santa isn’t Real Day. And on Easter: Zombie Jesus Day. ---
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/51 "2011-11-27T06:22:55Z")
Over here in Oz while I am waiting for the Chrissie hols to start Iam making pressies for the whole family. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/52 "2011-11-27T08:06:55Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > **Black Friday**. When I was a kid all we ever called it was “the day after Thanksgiving”. How the ad industry conned everyone into calling it this I’ll never know. Frankly, a name like that makes me think I’ll catch some kind of pestilence if I go shopping. Who knows, you just might. Good reason for staying home that day, if you needed another one. The ad industry didn’t invent the name “Black Friday”, they just bullshitted everybody after the name escaped to try to make people _believe_ they did. “Black Friday” was in use at least as early as 1966 (that’s the year the term first appeared in a newspaper). It was coined by Philadelphia police officers to describe the chaos in Center City on the day after Thanksgiving. It seems to have started spreading out of Philly sometime in the '70s, first among retail workers who found the dark humor of the term summed up their feelings about the day pretty well, and then among shoppers and among news people desperate for a story on what is usually a pretty dull news day. In the late 1980s, the retail and advertising industries started pushing some hogwash about this being the day that retailers see their balance sheets go “into the black”, but this is unadulterated horse hockey. ---
**Author:** ![Tammi\_Terrell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Tammi\_Terrell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tammi_Terrell)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/53 "2011-11-27T15:35:46Z")
> [@flodnak](#): > > The ad industry didn’t invent the name “Black Friday”, they just bullshitted everybody after the name escaped to try to make people _believe_ they did. In fact, proving your point, **flodnak** , we now have [a sighting from 1961](http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1105A&L=ADS-L&P=R15910) mentioning a joint effort by Philadelphia downtown merchants and a city official, who also happened to be a public-relations executive, to change the names of “Black Friday” and “Black Saturday” to “Big Friday” and “Big Saturday.” Ulimately, that campaign failed. Two things are important about this, I think. Aside from reiterating that retailers had nothing to do with the coining of “Black Friday” and pointing out that they were doing their best to get rid of the nickname, this piece is a strong indicator that, somewhere down the road, rebranding “Black Friday” (since a name change didn’t work) and then embracing a rehabilated “Black Friday” would be the twin approaches to take. It’d be great to discover the Don Draper who came up with this “whitewash” strategy, which is the one that worked. Additionally, of note is that Denny Griswold, then editor and publisher of _Public Relations Newsletter_ (which went on to become [_PR News_](http://www.prnewsonline.com/)), is (so far) our earliest source for a printed usage of “Black Friday.” (She was also the publishing partner and widow of Glenn Griswold, who had headed up [_Business Week_](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/news/articles/business_news.htm).) Now, here in 2011, I find it interesting that the late public-relations icon and a 50-year-old public-relations blurb have had a hand in unraveling what had proven a pretty successful public-relations campaign. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/54 "2011-11-27T18:12:51Z")
Nobody’s mentioned [Festivus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus)? Or [Ponder Day](http://books.google.com/books?id=4TfPpi0uaVUC&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=pondering+day+fulghum&source=bl&ots=QnEDXgJjNN&sig=KZo1lNluOui82lH4TvqKJut7il0&hl=en&ei=KH3STpvJGqLg0QGv29hG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/55 "2011-11-27T19:38:29Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I gather “Bunny Day” is right out, then? C’est une bonne idée! ('Cause if you say it out loud, it sounds like “bunn ee day”…) ---
**Author:** ![missinformation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@missinformation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missinformation)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2011, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/56 "2011-11-28T00:36:52Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > And don’t _even_ get me started on “righty tighty, lefty loosey!” Sorry, but that is the way I remember it…pardon me whilst I impale you with my screwdriver!!! ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2011, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/57 "2011-11-29T13:21:02Z")
> [@Cunctator](#): > > I’ve never heard it called Fat Tuesday in English here. The more common names are Pancake Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday.That doesn’t get used here because we use Autumn rather then Fall, but I don’t have a problem with a pithy phrase to help people remember which way the clocks should go. In my experience many people have trouble remembering this, even though it’s been happening twice a year for many years. We call it Autumn aswell (U.K.), and you’ve pretty much said what I was going to say. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/58 "2011-11-30T06:16:05Z")
I remember in 2001 I said “I’ll bet they’ll call this day something stupid, like Patriot Day”. I wish we’d had YouTube back then because I’d have put it into posterity. ---
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/59 "2011-11-30T12:20:25Z")
So what are your feelings on Xmyth? ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942/60 "2011-12-01T04:20:20Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > I thought Andy Rooney was dead! > > Why do they insist on calling New Year’s Eve “Get drunk and fuck night”? My dad always called it “Amateur Night.” Never heard of Cyber Monday. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-following-cutesy-holiday-nicknames/603942.md?page=2)