Ask Sue-belinda

I RECEIVED a lovely email full of questions and as Christmas is just around the corner and I’ll soon turn my mind (and heart) to exploring Christmas themes, I thought it best I get on to them!

Many of you will be familiar with the expression “red letter day” – “John’s finishing Year 12, it’s a real red letter day”.

We all know it’s a day of special significance, but why must it be a “red” day? I’m a bit partial to blue, why not blue? To discover why red was chosen in preference to any other colour, we must take ourselves back to the times of our good friends the Romans.

The Romans were an organised and orderly bunch. During the time of the Roman Republic (507-27 BCE), the central government of Rome published an annual calendar of events which was then distributed across all Roman outposts. It included all governmental days of importance, tax days, Senate sittings, festivals and celebrations, harvests, sowings and troop movements.

Given that the Roman Empire stretched from Britain in the west, to the Sahara in the south, Turkey in the east and up to north western Europe, this was a massive task. Copies of these annual calendars were hung in every major centre of the Empire. The planning must have been extraordinary! Can you imagine what the lead time would be for ensuring your local festival event was included in the calendar?

It was inevitable that some important events were missed by local commands and as we know, the Romans don’t take kindly to people “messing about”. Their solution was simple, they would record in red the most important of the events to be observed.

We’ve spoken previously about the pragmatism of the early Christians and they seized upon the idea of “red lettering days” of importance. Colours were assigned to religious observance – purple for Lent and Advent, white and gold for Easter and Christmas, green for Trinity and red for the Passion and Pentecost. When medieval church scholars copied the religious texts, initial capitals and highlighted words of importance were written in red ink – they were “red lettered”. In time the expression became “red letter”.

In due course, the colour red slipped into other aspects of life – for example, in the United Kingdom academic dons and doctors may exchange their black robe (their “undress”) for a scarlet “festal” gown (“dress” robe) on a “scarlet day”. On scarlet or red letter days, the judges of the British High

Court when sitting at the Courts of Law, wear scarlet robes. In Australia judges wear scarlet robes when sitting in criminal proceedings and in Queensland a red sash is worn on some occasions.

So what are the red letter days?

Red letter days as observed by the Courts include religious days of significance such as November 1 which is All Saints Day, St Thomas’s Day December 21, Ash Wednesday (a movable observance announcing the beginning of Lent) and many others. Christmas

Day and Easter Day are never red letter days as the Courts of Law are closed. Red letter days also include days of significance for the Royal Family – the Queen’s birthday; the date of her Accession and Coronation; Prince Philip’s birthday; and Prince Charles’s birthday as the heir apparent.

English-speaking countries are not the only places to celebrate red letter days. Red letter days are also observed in Norway, Sweden, South Korea, Hong Kong and most Latin American countries. While they once were reserved for church, governmental or legislative events, now any one of us can celebrate a day which for us is a red letter day – a day of special significance.

Have you ever had the “wool pulled over your eyes”? It means to deceive or to hoodwink, to trick or dupe. It’s an expression that has been about since the 1600s and appears to be American in origin. Certainly the earliest written mention appears in the Gettysburg paper The People’s Press, of November 1835. Most writers suggest that the phrase arose from the custom of wearing wigs, but in truth, wig wearing in the new colony had all but died out by the beginning of the 19th century. Even the fledgling country’s third President, Thomas Jefferson, though a wig wearer himself, advised the judiciary: “For Heaven’s sake discard the monstrous wig which makes the English judges look like rats peeping through bunches of oakum.’’

(Oakum is old rope untwisted which when added to tar is stuffed between boards on ships as caulking for a watertight seal.)

Themis, the Greek goddess of justice is blind – she must listen to both sides of the story as she cannot judge by anything seen. It is suggested that when a judge pulls on his wig, he is temporarily blinded just as Themis – he ”has the wool pulled over his eyes”. This meaning was to infer that now he’d not be tricked by fancy clothes, he’d listen and weigh up evidence to determine the veracity of arguments. Of course it’s never a straight line, or indeed a single line, between expression and origin, and other writers suggest that the habit of taking hostages and covering their heads with a rug may have been the origin.

Most rugs in days past were made of wool and the act of “pulling the wool over someone’s eyes” may have resulted in their being tricked into believing things were happening which may not have been the case, or simply not being able to see and therefore identify captors. There is even a small group of etymologists who suggest that we pull the blankets (of wool) over our own heads to trick ourselves into not worrying about strange lights, shadows or noises in the late of night when we are all in bed. We attempt to trick ourselves into believing that all is well.

We may not know the definitive origin, but the modern meaning – to trick or dupe – remains the same. Don’t get the wool pulled over your eyes!

>>If you’ve a question – on just about anything – drop me a line and I’ll see

what I can uncover!

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1864Bushranger

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1920The

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1934Strike

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1981Fast

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2018In

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