Thread: Days of work...

I think that понедельник, вторник, and later, субботник and воскресник are supposed to mean "x-day of work" (ie first day, second day, and the other two are Soviet inventions). My question is where does one find the "work/labor" in the word -- "-ник" and what word does it come from?

"ник" is a suffix - one of the most productive in Russian wordmaking. It shows the belonging to something (action or subject) which hides in the main part of the word. Субботник means any work assigned at Saturday (суббота).

(In many cases the ник suffix is the same with 'er' in worker or baker
but коровник is not a cowman or cowboy - it's a cowshed)

and no - понедельник and вторник both have come not with субботник - they are way much older. In fact (unlike it goes in English) most of the Russian days are numbered - compare вторник and второй (second in the week), среда and середина, средний (middle in the week), пятница and пять (five,fifth in the week).

Originally Posted by Leof

and no - понедельник and вторник both have come not with субботник - they are way much older. In fact (unlike it goes in English) most of the Russian days are numbered - compare вторник and второй (second in the week), среда and середина, средний (middle in the week), пятница and пять (five,fifth in the week).

Воскресенье раньше называлось неделя (не деля) нерабочий день, а по-недельник шел после недели. эти названия еще остались в украинском языке.

А я никогда об этом даже и не знал!!!

Originally Posted by ReDSanchous

А я никогда об этом даже и не знал!!!

"Не подозревал"? Корявая фраза у тебя получилась...

This post is useless. It is here because I double posted. If you are still reading this, you must be very bored.

So if I understand you all correctly, it's simply like this:
1. Понедельник is more or less "the day after day неделя" (which was a non-work day).
2. Вторник is simply the "second day" -- it's understood that this too is a work day.
3. Субботник (Суббота -- the Sabbath) and Воскресник (Воскресенье -- day of the resurrection?) don't literally have a similar meaning to these two, but the Soviet leadership was playing off of them with the -ник ending in order to incorporate them as work days?

Barmaley, delete one post when you still can do it.

Coming to days of the week, the last two are called суббота and воскресение. Суббота comes from what you call now "sabbath" and воскресение refers to the resurrection of Christ.

Poor четверг, he feels left out of the discussion. Where does he come from?

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

Poor четверг, he feels left out of the discussion. Where does he come from?

Fourth day, I believe: четвертый and all...

Originally Posted by Leof

"ник" is a suffix - one of the most productive in Russian wordmaking.
...
(In many cases the ник suffix is the same with 'er' in worker or baker
but коровник is not a cowman or cowboy - it's a cowshed)

Compare дневник, ночник, вечерник и утренник ;)

понедельник - по-неделя - first day of the week
вторник - второй - second day
среда - средний - middle day
четверг - четвёртый - fourth day
пятница - пятый - fifth day
суббота - sabbath
воскресенье - воскресение - resurrection

Originally Posted by Indra

Compare дневник, ночник, вечерник и утренник

Wait - you forgot to add полдник (the midday meal) and полуночник(night-bird or any creature which activity increases close to the midnight)

My schedule
Утренник
Полдник
Дневник
Вечерник
Полуночник
Ночник

Pitty it has no sense in Russian!

Let us remember: двойник, тройник.

Is двойник someone's literal (ie biological) twin or can it also just be someone's physical/intellectual/social/whatever twin?

Двойник is either biological or physical.

Mr. Bush has lots of двойники. (i.e. some people really resemble him in shape, complexion, etc.)

My house in Moscoqw and your house in New York are двойники - isn't it amazing? (i.e. surprisingly the both houses are alike notwisthstanding the location, culture, etc.)

I am totally agree!
Although I'm in doubt - who knows, perhaps there is some двойник in professional terminology of Russian metalworkers. Like - Petrovich, give me dvoinik 17x23. I need to fix that old troinik in nuzhnik...

Нужник - "nesessary place" - means Toilet in the Russian country.

Где ты видел тройник в нужнике?

I just pretendet it COULD be so...
Perhaps someone left it there, or hidd, or elsewhat...

I simply have no idea who else could use DVOINIK.

Originally Posted by Leof

dvoinik 17x23

Это ты ключ рожковый так назвал? :o