Little Saturday

Little Saturday (Bulgarian: малката събота, Bokmål and Danish: lille lørdag, Finnish: pikkulauantai, Nynorsk: litle laurdag, Swedish: lillördag) is a European concept especially celebrated in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Bulgaria that adds Wednesday to the list of "drinking days". Many nightclubs and bars stay open late and offer many kinds of little Saturday specials such as music shows and drink specials.

Variants by country

Swedish and Norwegian teenagers and young adults often use^{[citation needed]} lillördag, lille lørdag as slang for Wednesday (onsdag in Swedish and Norwegian).^[1][2][3] In Bulgaria, малката събота or Little Saturday is well known among the youths and the elderly generations as well. In the UK and Ireland, "Little Saturday Wednesdays" offer student discounts in some bars, and the Wednesday as Little Saturday is in some places seen as the students night out, although it is not as widespread as in other countries.

In Sweden and Norway, the tradition comes from 'the maid's Saturday' Swedish: piglördag, which fell on a Wednesday. That was the day when the maid had her day off, as she normally did not have any time off on Saturdays.^[4][5]

"Little Saturday" referring to Wednesday is also a well known concept amongst South Africans, young and old and is used to justify a mid-week tipple when the week seems too long.

In Bulgaria, Малката събота or "Little Saturday" is very common for people to go out and drink. The common perception is that a person will get very drunk on Wednesday and use Thursday to go to work to sober up until that same person is sober enough to go out on Friday and get drunk again after work.

References

1. Woolsey, Barbara. "Lillördag: Sweden's workers de-stress with 'Little Saturday'". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
2. "Det Norske Akademis ordbok". naob.no (in Norwegian). Retrieved 2023-05-30.
3. Tryti, Tone (2009). Norsk slangordbok (in Norwegian Bokmål). Oslo: Kunnskapsforl. pp. 222–223. ISBN 978-82-573-1980-9.
4. "Onsdag er Odins dag". www.timeanddate.no (in Norwegian). Retrieved 2022-02-10.
5. "Swedish word of the day: onsdag". The Local Sweden. 2021-11-10. Retrieved 2022-02-10.