W – Wednesday, Friday etc.- Linguistic hangovers – Walk the Chalk, Winging it –Whistlestop Tour…

Wednesday, Friday etc. are linguistic reminders of Britains many waves of invaders leading to the mongrel people and mongrel language of which we are so proud (whilst still using the dog-whistle of Immigration to try and rouse the  right to support the current government).

Wednesday come from Wotan’s Day (Head Honcho of the Norse Gods who was brought to us by the Vikings), Thursday – Thor’s Day and Friday (now reduced or is it elevated to a celluloid Superhero), Friday is for the Goddess Freia. Saturday is for the Roman god Saturn ( they too invaded Britain!). Sunday is for the Sun and Monday for the Moon which are fairly obvious, but Tuesday is supposed to be referencing the Roman God and planet Mars and the derivation of Tuesday from Mars is less obvious…

To “Walk the Chalk” means to behave according to the rules and comes from the sobriety test whereby a policeman requires someone suspected of being drunk, to walk a straight line.

Winging it – this is the expression I always used used to use for “making it up as you go along” UNTIL my first A to Z  Challenge in 2023 when I picked up an alternative – Pantsing It! I have used it ever since! This year I have managed to stay ahead of the game – so far… But the origin of the expression “Winging it”, comes from the Wing-walkers – those derring-do entertainers who performed stunts on the top wing of biplanes in the 1920s and 30s – imagine the Risk Assessments if you tried to do that today…

A Whistlestop Tour is an American expression where many small towns were connected by rail before even road – may even have come into being because of the building of the railways. They were however, too small to have a scheduled halt and only stopped if they were requested to by a signal and they blew their whistle to announce their impending arrival and let potential passengers to get to the station – hence Whistlestop. Campaigning Politicians in America, often travelled around by train and at tiny whistlestop towns, would not even alight from the train but instead, make their speech from the balcony which train carriages had in those days – a Whistlestop Tour…

There is no Cant language beginning with W from the Wikipedia article…