[Avodah] Pagan Names

[Jay F. Shachter]

> 
> And why doesn't R Hirsch discuss contemporary month names? Are
> Janus, Mars, Maia, or Juno less pagan than Woden, Thor, Tiw or Frig?
> (Saturday is named for Saturn via the planet, so I'll cut that one a
> little more slack.)
> 
> Off-the-cuff, I am thinking it's the fact that he is in Germany that
> gave the names of Teutonic gods a little more grouding in the
> surrounding culture, and thus the name's origins less forgotten.
> 

Pedantic correction: the pagan origin of the English word "Wednesday"
does not belong in this list.  The German-speaking people among whom
Hirsch lived did not call Wednesday "Wednesday".  In the German
language that day has something of a numeric name, like the names we
Hebrews use for the days of the week (every speaker of Yiddish knows
this).

(On the other hand, the popular etymology attributing "Dienstag" to
"Dienst" -- thus making the name of the day something like the French
"vendredi" -- is incorrect.  If anything, the etymology goes in the
other direction.)

This is, as I said, a pedantic correction.  But we are Jews, and we
love pedantic corrections.


                        Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
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