"Black Friday," again

[Sam Clements]

Is it just me, or has the term "Black Friday" been used in the media this
year on an order of tenfold over previous years?

Sam Clements

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bonnie Taylor-Blake" <taylor-blake at NC.RR.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, November 24, 2006 7:19 PM
Subject: "Black Friday," again


> We've previously discussed when "Black Friday" may have first become
> attached to the day after Thanksgiving Day (and what significance the term
> held to those who did the attaching), so I won't go over old ground [1].
>
> I was a little surprised to see, then, that the Wikipedia page on this
> term
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_%28shopping%29) includes the
> following mention of a 1922 usage.  (Incidentally, this snippet appears in
> the "Accounting Practice" portion of the page.)
>
> ----------------------------------
>
> Earliest citation, speaking to the Friday after Thanksgiving:
>
> A BLACK FRIDAY.
> There have been many Black Fridays in recent history. Most of them have
> been
> days of financial panic. There has been none of blacker foreboding than
> last
> Friday. And the blackness is not loss or fear of loss in stocks and bonds.
> New York Times (1857-Current file).
> New York, N.Y.: Dec 3, 1922. pg. 38, 1 pgs
>
> ----------------------------------
>
> In fact, that *New York Times* article has nothing really to do with "the
> Friday after Thanksgiving," but instead describes diplomatic reaction (or
> lack thereof) on Friday, 1 December 1922 to the formal announcement in
> Lausanne of a decree calling for the expulsion of Greeks from Turkey.
> (The
> first two paragraphs of the piece follow.)
>
> In the end, there's no mention of Thanksgiving Day.  The closest we come
> to
> that holiday is that 1 December was technically the day after Thanksgiving
> here in the States.
>
> -- Bonnie
>
> ----------------------------------
>
> A BLACK FRIDAY.
>
> There have been many Black Fridays in recent history.  Most of them have
> been days of financial panic.  There has been none of blacker foreboding
> than last Friday.  And the blackness is not loss or fear of loss in stocks
> and bonds.  It is the blackness of loss of home, the blackness of exile
> and
> suffering and the peril of death.  But that which deepens the darkness
> that
> has come upon the earth in the broad daylight of the twentieth century is
> civilization's prompt acceptance of the Turks' decree of banishment not
> only
> of a million Greeks, but incidentally of all Christian minorities within
> the
> Turkish realm beyond the Hellespont, which the Aryan crossed over three
> thousand years ago.  Light blackens such a blot.  Lord CURZON but urged
> that
> the Greeks be gotten out as quickly as possible in order to escape
> massacre.
> For the rest there was, so far as reported, only quiet acquiescence.
>
> Meanwhile, the dispatches from Washington of the same date report that the
> Administration believes that the United States "is not without influence
> at
> Lausanne," that not only the Allies but the Turkish representatives appear
> to be "wholly satisfied" with the part that the United States is playing
> at
> Lausanne, and that the very latest reports from Ambassador CHILD enable
> the
> Department of State to draw the conclusion that the work of the
> "gathering"
> at Lausanne is "proceeding satisfactorily."  Let us assume that the "very
> latest reports" do not include the happenings of Friday.  If the
> Government
> were knowingly "wholly satisfied" with that day's record, then black were
> white.  It is inconceivable that the American people can be "wholly
> satisfied" with our part as the Turks are reported to be.
>
> [Etc.]
>
> ----------------------------------
>
> [1] Earliest printed sightings of "Black Friday" in the sense of what a
> traffic and shopping nightmare the day holds seem to date to the
> mid-1970s;
> the earliest sighting I've now come across for the sense of "putting
> businesses' ledgers back into black" is a 26 November 1982 broadcast of
> ABC
> News's "World News Tonight."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org