Interview on NPR’s “Weekend Edition” about the origins of “Black Friday.” (Nov. 23, 2014)
“The term Black Friday came to be used in Philadelphia by police officers to describe that rush of shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving, which would result in traffic jams and clogged streets,” says linguist Ben Zimmer. “And we’ve got evidence of that in Philadelphia going back to 1961.”
(Show page, audio, related Word Routes column)