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A foreign diplomat was invited to a meeting scheduled for ‘Wenzday.’ He wrote it down: W-E-N-S-D-A-Y.
When he arrived on the correct day, he asked his assistant: “Which two letters in this word are silent?”
“The D and the first E,” she said.
“So it’s spelled W-E-D-N-E-S-D-A-Y, but pronounced Wenz-day?”
“Yes.”
“Seven of the nine letters are pronounced. Two are decorative.”
“Well, three if you count the day — ‘Wodensday’ originally. But that was 1200 years ago.”
“So this is the only day of the week named after a Norse god, with a spelling that no longer reflects the name, with two silent letters, and it happens every seven days.”
“Yes.”
“How do children learn this?”
“They don’t, really. They just… absorb it.”
The diplomat stared at his calendar. “In my country, the word for the fourth day of the week has four letters and zero silent ones. You pronounce exactly what you see.”
“That sounds lovely.”
“It is.” He tapped the word Wednesday. “This is not a word. This is a spelling contest that escaped from a school auditorium.”
***
As you may have gathered, this site advocates replacing “Wednesday” with “Week Three.” The above is Exhibit A.
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