The Origin of Cyber Monday

For many, Cyber Monday provides the perfect shopping solution: all the holiday deals with none of the holiday crowds. But where did this term come from? The term Cyber Monday was first used in 2005 by Shop.org to encourage people to shop online; it refers to the Monday following Black Friday. Black Friday is, of course, the day after Thanksgiving and one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Until the advent of the internet, cyber was used in the formation of words relating to computers, computer networks, or virtual reality. This usage can be traced to the word cybernetics, which was ushered into English in the 1940s by the scientist Norbert Wiener. Cybernetics refers to the study of mechanical and electronic systems designed to replace human systems. It comes from the Greek term kybernḗtēs meaning “helmsman” or “steersman.” The first instance on record of cyber as a combining form is from 1961 in the Wall Street Journal: “A major difference between the Cybertron and conventional computers…is the ability of the Cybertron to make use of raw data and signals.” In 1966 fans of the popular sci-fi show Doctor Who heard another cyber combining form: cybermen. These deathly cyborgs have popped up over 20 times throughout the show’s run.

In current usage, cyber is largely used in terms relating to the internet. One notable coinage in the evolution of this term is the word cyberspace by novelist William Gibson. He used it first in his 1982 story “Burning Chrome.” He used it again in his 1984 novel Neuromancer in a passage that many believe captures the sense of wonder that permeated the introduction of the internet to mainstream culture:

 ”Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts… A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding…”

Source: dictionary.com

The Origin of Black Friday

With Thanksgiving feasts come Black Friday sales. While many people believe the term Black Friday finds its roots in the sense of black meaning “showing a profit; not showing any losses,” this is not the case.

Historically, black has been associated with days of economic stress as opposed to days of booming commercial success. The first Black Friday occurred in 1869 after financier Jay Gould and railway businessman James Fisk attempted to corner the gold market, which ultimately resulted in financial panic and the collapse of the market. In turn, when the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929, marking the onset of the Great Depression, the event was referred to as Black Tuesday.

Following suit with the earlier “black” days, the true origin of the post-Thanksgiving Black Friday lies in the sense of black meaning “marked by disaster or misfortune.” In the 1950s, factory managers first started referring to the Friday after Thanksgiving as Black Friday because so many of their workers decided to falsely call in sick, thus extending the holiday weekend. About ten years later, Black Friday was used by Philadelphia traffic cops to describe the day after Thanksgiving, when they had to work 12-hour shifts in terrible traffic. Soon the term caught on among shoppers and merchants in Philadelphia, and from there it took off nationwide.

The 1980s brought the mythology of Black Friday so often heard today. While the phrases in the black and in the red are used in the business world to describe profits and losses, this explanation for one of the busiest shopping days of the year only came about in the 1980s, about 20 years after the phrase Black Friday was in regular use.

Source: dictionary.com