Day of the Week - Wednesday Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Addams Family

Wednesday Addams is the daughter of Gomez and Morticia Addams and the sister of Pugsley Addams. The character appears in the Charles Addams' "The New Yorker" cartoons and then in television, motion pictures, comic books, on Broadway and more. The dour, morose, Goth character has been played by Lisa Loring, Christina Ricci, Nicole Fugere, Krysta Rodriguez, and Jenna Ortega.

Answer: Lent

The Church Year comprises two great liturgical seasons: Advent-Christmas-Epiphany and Lent-Easter-Pentecost. The first is ended on Shrove Tuesday; the second begins on Ash Wednesday. The date of Easter determines the date of Ash Wednesday; Ash Wednesday is always 46 days before. Lent is technically only forty days long because it is a season of fasting and Sundays are never fasts. Thus Lent is forty days plus six Sundays long.

Answer: full of woe

Fortune-telling rhymes based on the day of the week on which a child is born have existed in English since the 16th century. The following one was first published in 1838: "Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace. Wednesday's child is full of woe, Thursday's child has far to go. Friday's child is loving and giving, Saturday's child works hard for a living. And the child born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, good and gay."

Answer: The Wednesday Cricket Club

Sometime between 1816 and 1820, The Wednesday Cricket Club organized itself in Sheffield, England. The name was chosen because all of the players had Wednesdays off from work and it was the only day on which they could play. In 1867, that team voted to create a football club to keep themselves fit during the off season. Sixty members joined.

They called themselves the Wednesday Football Club in honour of their parent organization. The cricket club failed in 1925. The football club added the city name, Sheffield, in 1929.

Answer: French

The days of the week in French are "lundi" (Monday), "mardi" (Tuesday), "mercredi" (Wednesday), "jeudi" (Thursday), "vendredi" (Friday), "samedi" (Saturday), and "dimanche" (Sunday).

Other words for Wednesday are "Dimecres" (Catalan), "Marcuri" (Corsican), "Onsdag" (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish), "woensdag" (Dutch), "Mittwoch" (German), "szerda" (Hungarian), "mercoledì" (Italian), "Quarta-feira" (Portuguese), "miercuri" (Romanian), "streda" (Slovak), and "miércoles" (Spanish).

Answer: a boy miserable over his parents' divorce

The Broadway play "Wednesday's Child" ran only 56 performances at the Longacre Theatre in New York City. John S. Robertson directed an adaptation of the story to film the same year; it was again adapted to film in 1946 under the title "Child of Divorce." In it, a ten-year-old boy named Bobby is distressed by his mother's infidelity and his parents' subsequent divorce.

He does not seem to fit into either of their new lives. His depression leads to his relegation to a military academy where he remains miserable.

It would be a "spoiler" to reveal the denouement but 1934 audiences did require a happy ending.

Answer: got wet

There are twelve volumes in Harry Kemelman's series of novels involving Rabbi David Small, the first seven of which are named for the days of the week. "Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet" is the sixth novel in this series. The mysterious death of a pharmacist in the congregation leads the rabbi to investigate many people's motives for murder. The rabbi and local police chief Hugh Lanigan find opportunity not only to consult about the case but to share elements of their respective faiths with each other. Lanigan is a Roman Catholic.

Answer: Simon & Garfunkel

Simon and Garfunkel's first album, "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.," did not sell particularly well. It was re-released two years later to capitalize on the success of "The Sound of Silence." The song "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." is a self-described "folk song" about a man who has committed the armed robbery of a liquor store and must therefore leave his sleeping lady love. "For I know with the first light of dawn I'll be leaving / And tonight will be all I have left to recall."

Answer: Odin

Bryan Fuller and Michael Green adapted Gaiman's novel to create the Starz television programme (2017-2021). The premise is that the New Gods (such as Technology and the Media) are overtaking the Old Gods in influence and importance. Odin, the All Father, takes human form as Mister Wednesday to recruit the Old Gods to go to war to restore their prominence. Ian McShane plays Mister Wednesday. Thor and Loki are both his sons.

Answer: Odin/Woden

The Ancient Greeks named Wednesday "hemera Hermu" after the god Hermes, the god of business and theft, who served both as a messenger and as the god who guided souls to the afterlife. Modern Greeks call Wednesday "Tetárti" which means the fourth day. The Ancient Romans named the day "dies Mercurii" after the god Mercury, the god of commerce who was also the messenger of the other gods. Compare the Modern Italian name for the day: "Mercoledi." The Modern English word Wednesday honours the Anglo-Saxon Teutonic god Woden and the Norse god Odin, who are comparable deities.

The Old English was "wodnesdaeg." The Middle English was "wednesdai" or "wednesday." Woden/Odin is the chief of the gods in these pantheons, in particular as the leader of the Wild Hunt in Germanic and Britannic myth.