A jornada is a Mexican (originally) term for a day's journey without water. If there is no water there is no reason to stop your horses and so a jornada has neither pause nor relief. It's not a word we use much. It's hard to travel for a day in England without it bloody raining, let alone avoiding all rivers. Nonetheless, I think that jornada could usefully be revived to mean a day without an alcoholic drink, or indeed an occasion or ordeal where the wine flows like concrete. Thus "That team-building exercise was a complete jornada. Anyone want to go to the pub?"
Being the weblog of Mark Forsyth
Monday, 5 December 2011
Jornada
A jornada is a Mexican (originally) term for a day's journey without water. If there is no water there is no reason to stop your horses and so a jornada has neither pause nor relief. It's not a word we use much. It's hard to travel for a day in England without it bloody raining, let alone avoiding all rivers. Nonetheless, I think that jornada could usefully be revived to mean a day without an alcoholic drink, or indeed an occasion or ordeal where the wine flows like concrete. Thus "That team-building exercise was a complete jornada. Anyone want to go to the pub?"
But, technically, the day isn't over when they go to the pub, is it? Do we need a word for 'an excessive number of hours without a drink'? Horadana?
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