Re: Mothers' Day; "Teen"

On 5/15/06, Peter Bleackley <Peter.Bleackley@...> wrote:
>
> staving Eldin Raigmore:
> >Today is "Mothers' Day" in the United States of America.
> >I don't know what other countries also celebrate a "Mothers' Day", nor,
> if
> >any do, which of them also celebrate on the second Sunday in May.
>
> In Britain and across Europe it's the traditional date - Laetere Sunday,
> the fourth Sunday of Lent - this means it usually falls in March.

As I said, I know from firsthand experience that Italy and the Netherlands
follow the American practice rather than the British (not that I'm assigning
primacy to those countries in the selection of those dates; I'm just using
them as known examples).  I have it on good authority that Germany does
likewise.  So "in Britain and across Europe" seems to be a bit of an
overstatement. :)

In any case, I set about trying to translate a greeting for the day into
Okaikiar, and discovered - horrors! - that I had no words for "mother" and
"father" - even though I have one for "sibling"!  Shame on me.  Herewith,
the newly coined Okaikiaran word for "mother": "mar".  Thus, "mother's day"
= "day of the mother" = "lokan mor".  If you prefer to punctuate the English
as "mothers' day", to be more inclusive, than "day of the mothers" is "lokan
mør".  To wish someone a happy such day, you would say "may the day of the
mother(s) be happy", which is a lot less wordy in Okaikiar: "Lokan mor
mailon!".  You could be a little more explicit that it is the addressee(s)
whom you wish to have a happy day, not necessarily everyone in general, by
adding "dank" (for thee) or "denk" (for you[pl]) to the front.

-- 
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>