Why Did "Eve" Mean 'the Day Before' instead of 'the Evening Following'?
@mythociate (21437)
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
January 23, 2021 2:07pm CST
Today, you hear about "Christmas Eve" or "New Year's Eve" (or 'any other holiday's' "Eve") and you know they're talking about 'the day before the holiday.'
But you hear 'old poetry' talking about "this eve" or "an upcoming eve" (an example that springs to mind is "A Midsummer Night's Eve"), and you know they're talking about "that very night."
How did it get that way? Well, a little searching reminds me that Jewish days start 'the night before.' https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/95462/when-is-christmas-eve-eve/95465#95465
I'm not sure when it started applying to 'THE WHOLE DAY-before'; maybe it has something to do with 'the reason the day starts "in the middle of the night-before."' Does anyone know who decides when "midnight" is?
(I mean; I know we all set our clocks 'a certain number of hours (or half-hours?) before-or-after Greenwich Mean Time,' but how do we set the Greenwich Clock?)
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2 responses
@RasmaSandra (74114)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
24 Jan 21
Yes, the eve of a holiday is the evening before the actual day So New Year's Eve comes before New Year's Day and so on, Midnight should be exactly at 12 and that means it is the beginning of the next day
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@mythociate (21437)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
27 Jan 21
But who decides when "12 o'clock" is?
On this day in 1883, the railroads adopted a plan for standardized time zones. It all started when one man missed his train
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@lovebuglena (43191)
• Staten Island, New York
28 Jan 21
Jewish holidays do start the evening before...
Who wrote "A Midsummer Night's Eve"?
@mythociate (21437)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
29 Jan 21
@lovebuglena You're right; Shakespeare wrote 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' which he set ON 'Midsummer Night's Eve'
Tonight is Midsummer Night's Eve, also called St. John's Eve. St. John is the patron saint of beekeepers. It's a time when the hives are ful...
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@lovebuglena (43191)
• Staten Island, New York
28 Jan 21
@mythociate I thought that was "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
