Tricky Words in this week's OVI

In the Slovak piece on blood donors the word "šľachetnosť" is used. The literal translation in English is "nobility", but I decided not to use that because the other meaning is "šľachta". You might say that volunteering is a noble idea, or that giving blood is a noble deed. Those things are aristocratic only in Tolstoy's War and Peace. Translating "šľachetnosť" in more ordinary words, you could say generosity (veľkodušnosť) or disinterestedness (disinterested means "nemám osoh, nie som zainteresovaný"; uninterested means "nemám zaujem"). I've used "altruism", which means the urge to do things for other people's benefit, not your own. Volunteers get a good feeling from volunteering, but their motives are still altruistic.

ANDY'S WORDSHOP

Continuing with the topic of days of the week, I've remembered another children's rhyme involving them. This one helps them learn the names of the days, but also tells them something about the big events in life that we can't avoid, maybe also the typical course of a human life, probably the idea that life seems very short as well, and that apparently more than half of it is unpleasant ;-) Solomon Grundy, Born on Monday, Christened on Tuesday, Married on Wednesday, Took ill on Thursday, Grew worse on Friday, Died on Saturday, Buried on Sunday. That was the end of Solomon Grundy. There's also a comic-book zombie super-villain or antihero with the same name, an enemy of Green Lantern and later Batman as well, but I don't think he was married.