Monday is Longer than Tuesday

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jenny calling from San Diego.

Hi, Jenny. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Jenny.

Hi. Yes, I have always wondered what the origin was of the phrase,

Your Monday is longer than your Tuesday.

My mom used to use that phrase when we were growing up to indicate that in a kind of a subtle,

You know, as best as she could polite way that your slip was showing or some underwear was showing.

Mainly when back in the good old days when in school,

When you wore a dress or a skirt and you had some sort of slip,

Either full length or half length.

And I have never heard anybody else outside my family use this phrase.

And when I mentioned it to a friend of mine,

He went and Googled it to see if he could determine its origins.

And he claimed he came across the phrase,

Your Tuesday is longer than your Wednesday.

And said that it had indicated.

Well, that’s ridiculous.

It is.

It is crazy.

And I’ve never been able to find that,

And I think he was just pulling my leg on that one.

Wait, so the expression is your Monday is longer than your Tuesday,

And it means what?

Your slip is showing.

Oh.

Now, Jenny, do you still.

And what’s a slip?

You know those undergarments we used to wear way back when,

At least ladies used to wear?

I remember mine.

I’ve seen a picture of my great-grandparents.

Oh, no, I had one.

Did you have one, Jenny?

I did.

In fact, I still do have some.

In my closet, yes.

Aren’t they usually worn outside the clothing now?

Often.

Sometimes, yeah.

Indeed.

Yeah.

I had a half slip.

So this is from an era where it mattered that your slip might be a little longer than your dress.

Yes, exactly.

And where you would want to give somebody a sotto vacce warning.

Oh, I know.

Which is very subtly.

I tell you, Jenny, when I was in high school, I can distinctly remember my Aunt Margaret saying,

Moth Ann, you have a Ph.D.

Oh, yes.

Which was a petticoat hanging down.

Oh, how funny.

There are a ton of phrases to this.

Martha, you speak a great deal of Spanish.

I thought you were going to say Southern.

Do you know this Spanish expression?

I know that…

Fondo salido, busco marido.

Oh.

You’re basically saying your slip is showing you must be looking for a husband.

That’s great.

Because there’s something a little naughty about a slip show, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, or else you need a husband to point it out to you.

Oh.

Yeah.

There are a lot of really good ones like that.

Mrs. White is out of jail.

Yeah.

I love that one.

But here’s the one, Jenny, that’s close to what you were saying.

And this is from Jonathan Green’s Cassell’s Dictionary of Slaying, which is a British dictionary.

Monday comes before Sunday.

That’s the version that he has.

I would not be surprised if your friend did genuinely find the version that he told you about, the one that you scoffed at.

So you should go apologize and bring him cookies.

Yeah.

So there’s Monday comes before Sunday.

I’ve also seen Saturday is longer than Sunday.

Really?

There are all these little phrases.

There’s one from Trinidad and Tobago, moco longer than plantain.

Moco is a type of fig that tends to, it says here, because a moco fig is usually shorter than a plantain.

Oh, my God.

This is amazing.

Yeah.

Well, it was important.

There was a time in our culture where it was important that a woman look like she actually had some intentionality about her dress, right?

Right.

Slip was in the right place and the dress was the right place and nothing was showing that shouldn’t

Be showing. Right. But we’ve changed and I’m not making any kind of judgments. I’m just saying now

Slips aren’t, my sister’s even growing up decades ago, they didn’t wear them except at funerals and

Weddings for the most part. Right. Wow. That’s fantastic. So you are plugged in to one of the

Tributaries of English. Oh, thank you so much for giving me all that background information. We aren’t

Alone out there.

My sister and I were both

Definitely puzzled by this whole

Thing. She explored it too with other

Folks and couldn’t find anybody

Else who had heard of anything similar

To this. Wow, that’s cool.

Well, we’re glad to be your drop-off point

For new information. Thank you

Both. I really appreciate it. Take care, Jenny.

Thank you for calling. Bye-bye. Thank you.

Bye-bye. Did you hear

An expression from your parents when you were growing up

And come to think of it, you have no idea

What it means? Call us, 877-929-9673, or you can send those emails to us at words@waywordradio.org.