Word of the Week
by Kerry Maxwell, author of Brave New Words, with recordings by speechinaction
‘It’s Independence
Day in the US tomorrow, so that makes today a virtual Friday for
office workers in the States.’
The last day of the working week is usually Friday. If there is an
extra day’s holiday, then the last working day would be Thursday.
This Thursday can then be referred to as a virtual Friday. In
the US, the Thanksgiving holiday is always on a Thursday. The next
day is also usually taken as holiday, so then the Wednesday of that
week is considered to be a virtual Friday. More likely in the UK is
the related term virtual Monday. Three-day weekends here
usually consist of Saturday, Sunday and a public holiday on Monday,
in which case Tuesday is the first day of the working week and
constitutes a virtual Monday.
Background
The technological sense of the adjective virtual originated
in terms like virtual storage or virtual memory (which
relate specifically to the idea of temporary storage space on a
computer). However the term virtual reality spawned a new
wave of productive use of virtual, now defined in many
dictionaries as ‘relating to anything which is created by
computers or appears on computers or the Internet.’ Practically
anything exists in virtual form these days, e.g. a
virtual pet/office/university/carjacking, even a virtual
kiss! The term virtual Friday has probably arisen
and been perpetuated as a result of just such use, but in fact
reflects more accurately the original, core sense of the adjective,
i.e. ‘almost the same as the thing described, but not having the
actual form or appearance of it’.
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This article was first published on 17th March 2003.
Subject archive: holidays