Saint never

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Saint Never is an invented holy name, which is used colloquially to name a date after him that will never occur, the “Saint Never Day”. In the German dictionary it is described as “a fictitious proper name in Nimmers Tag, sanct Nimmers Tag, the day of salvation. Never who is not in the calendar and never appears […] nunquam, ad graecas calendas ”.

This saying has its origin in the practice in German-speaking countries since the early Middle Ages of not designating dates in documents with their calendar date, but with the name of the saint assigned to the respective day according to the Catholic calendar of saints (see: Documents of the Middle Ages and the Early Years Modern times ). For the everyday legal life of rural regions, certain lot or deadlines were set for the respective tasks , which were based on the holy feasts, for example for the hiring ( representation of the Lord ) or dismissal of servants and the due date of contracts or work for the general start of harvest on St. John's Day or Peter and Paul , the beginning of the grain cutting, Jacob's day , or the autumn sowing on Matthew's day .

In literary terms , Berthold Brecht addressed the issue of St. Never's Day in the play “ The Good Man of Sezuan ” in a bitterly evil song about the injustice of the world, the “Song of St. Never's Day”.

Equivalent expressions are

  • St. Nimmer's Day, Nimmer's Day, Nimmer's Day or Nimmer's Day
  • " On the Greek calendars " derived from the Latin ad Kalendas Graecas
  • Plum Pentecost , because the plum harvest never falls on Pentecost

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. never 4). In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 13 : N, O, P, Q - (VII). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1889, Sp. 848 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).
  2. Manfred Becker-Huberti : Celebrations, festivals, seasons. Living customs all year round. History and stories, songs and legends. Special edition. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) a. a. 2001, ISBN 3-451-24041-6 .
  3. Hans-Helmar Auel (Ed.): Undiscovered Holidays. The church year as a festival of faith (= service to the word. 89). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-59353-8 .
  4. a b never - never a day. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 13 : N, O, P, Q - (VII). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1889, Sp. 849-851 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).
  5. Plum Whitsun in the interactive dictionary of the LVR Institute for Regional Studies and Regional History (Rhenish Regional Studies)
  6. Brigitte Grunert: The Berlin dialect. A language seducer. With nine vignettes by Ines Blümel. (2nd Edition). berlin edition im be.bra verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 978-3-8148-0094-3 (excerpts from Google Books) .