I hope you all had a happy “Black Friday”!
In the US, the day after Thanksgiving is called “Black Friday”. I always thought it was because the stores are so crowded due to sales and people going Christmas shopping. That seems like a pretty “black” situation to me.
But yesterday, I learned that it’s a actually a pun based on accountancy terms. When a company is losing money, they’re in the “red”. When they’re profitable, they’re in the “black”. The day after Thanksgiving is one of the busiest shopping days of the year, a day when retail stores make a large percentage of their holiday sales. It’s so important to them that many move from the “red” into the “black”. Hence, “Black Friday”.
Interestingly, “Black Friday” also has a much more negative financial association: It can refer to Friday, September 24th, 1869, the day of one of the largest stock market crashes in American history.
This article was posted on Saturday, November 26th, 2005 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Countries & Cultures, Holidays Around the World, Thanksgiving, USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
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