We have a colleague who has red-sweater days, which led Moondog to wonder what the origin of the expression red-letter day was.
According to the Mavens:
The expression comes from the long-established practice of using red ink to indicate holy days in ecclesiastical calendars. A red-letter day–literally a day written in red letters–was a holy day, or church festival, and thus came to mean ‘any memorable or happy day’.
So a red-letter day is a good one. Unless you’re Hester Prynne, I guess.
Just further information…
The First Council of Nicea (~325 CE) set the basic Christian Calendar. It wasn’t, however, until the publication of the first Book of Common Prayer in ~1549 CE that the calendar itself had red letters to designate particular holy holidays.
There was, however, a tradition of highlighting special portions of a manuscript in red — hence the term ‘rubric.’
(Were you fishing for my comments with this entry?)
Comment by David — April 9, 2007 @ 3:19 pm |
Yes, David, MRP is all about taunting you.
Comment by mightyredpen — April 11, 2007 @ 3:21 pm |
I suspected as much.
Comment by David — April 12, 2007 @ 2:20 pm |