Saturday, November 19, 2011

Saturdaying

Saturdaying , noun;
1. Soviet Union: The practice of working on a Saturday without pay for the benefit of the collective

When I first saw this word I thought of that Will Ferrell line from 'Old School': "Well, um, actually [we have] a pretty nice little Saturday [planned], we're going to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath & Beyond. I don't know. I don't know if we'll have enough time." I would have guessed that Saturdaying meant spending your Saturday doing weekend things...like going antiquing or something. Turns out, I was pretty wrong.

Saturdaying is first attested in 1920 and is a translation of Russian subbotnik, based on Subbota ("Saturday"). In Cyrillic it's суббота.
"YOU. Volunteer for Saturdaying." (source)

No comments:

Post a Comment