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“These bonds are shackle free
Wrapped in lust and lunacy
Tiny touch of jealousy
These bonds are shackle free”

– Placebo

Luna, lunes, Monday, and lunacy all trace back to the Latin lūna, “moon,” an old word that shaped both calendars and metaphors. Spanish lunes descends directly from diēs Lūnae, “the day of the Moon,” while English Monday mirrors the same pattern through Old English Mōnandæg, a Germanic calque meaning “Moon’s day.”¹ German Montag follows the identical logic: Mond (moon) + Tag (day). Even lunacy preserves the old belief that lunar phases could disturb the mind, stemming from Medieval Latin lūnāticus, “moonstruck.” It is strange, then, how all these moon-days align in my head, so much so that I find myself thinking of the Mondays on a Wednesday.

1. Note: A calque is a word or expression created by literally translating the parts of a term from another language. ↩︎