Word of the Day: spavined

It has been a very strange day.  It ended well enough, but, it had a fair number of downs. At any rate, I am off work tomorrow, so, I’m glad about that.

Today’s Word:

spavined

As in:

A group of concerned citizens has come forward to try and force the US government to rearrange the calendar to “reschedule” what it calls “Non-Compliant Holidays.” According to the group, a “non-compliant holiday” is one which falls on a specific day, which means that it often is celebrated in the middle of the week instead of always creating, as is “proper and pleasing to God and man” a three-day weekend.

The group contents that these holidays, such as July 4, and Dec 25, should be instead “declared to take place on a revolving basis, to better comply with the wishes of a three-day weekend demanding public, like the more flexible and therefore, compliant holidays, such as Memorial Day (last Monday in May) and Labor Day (first Monday in September).”

The group is further committed to making Black Friday, (the day after Thanksgiving) a federal holiday, so that the Thanksgiving holiday is a proper four-day weekend. The group doesn’t officially declare Thanksgiving to be “non-compliant,” since it is not tied to a specific date, but, most of the members agree that the fact that it does little to contribute to the length of a weekend on its own, and forces people to return to work in the middle of a week or use their own precious leave time to create a long weekend, makes it a sore subject for the movement.

While the group has the support of many workers, many people are confused about why this issue is worth attention when much more serious issues are ignored.

“If these so-called ‘non-compliant’ holidays fall on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday, the weekend is extended already,” notes federal employee Janice Lopez. “That’s more than half the time. Sure, it’s hard to come back to work after taking a day in the middle of the week, but, it’s better than not having it at all.”

Another protester, a retired World War II veteran, nearing 90 years old, said “Our country has been celebrating on the Fourth of July for as long as I can remember. Changing it now would be against a very important tradition. I mean, what would we even call the holiday? Fireworks Night? July Fourth but celebrated on the Seventh? How stupid would that sound?”

Despite the arguments of spavined war veterans, advocates of the idea are not giving up. These supporters say that they are bringing the issue to light for all the workers who don’t have leave that they can use to make a longer weekend.

A few critics of the scheme highlight the flaw in this altruistic aspect, noting that workers who don’t have leave, often don’t have such things as paid holidays either, and any day off, no matter when it falls, is as inconvenient as any other day. Even moreso, workers in the service industries rarely have weekends off anyway, so, the concept of a three-day weekend is not a concept that means much.

Other critics highlight this as a new symptom of class-war, where those with generous paid holidays demand more form their comfortable existence, while those without just try and work enough hours to pay the bills.

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Maybe we should just work hard at achieving the 4-day work week.

spavined / SPAV – ind / old and decrepit: over the hill