On St Dynda’s Day

Hello and welcome to Sound Czech, Radio Prague’s language series in which you can learn some interesting phrases while listening to music. Today, we’ll hear the 1994 song Ne, teď ne (No, not now) by the Moravian band Mňága a Žďorp, whose name would deserve a special edition of SoundCzech in its own right. In this edition, however, the phrase to listen out for is ‘na svatýho Dyndy’.

The Czech expression ‘na svatýho Dyndy’ means on St Dynda’s Day. If you are wondering when that particular day in the calendar comes round, don’t. St Dynda is no ordinary saint – in fact, he is no saint at all. The expression on St Dynda’s Day means at unspecified time in the future, or more accurately, never. When will you get a pay raise? Or, when will you quit smoking? Well, it can all happen on St Dynda’s Day – ‘na svatýho Dyndy’.

The phrase is very old, but its origin is unknown. One of the creators of the modern Czech language, the linguist Josef Jungmann, thought the name of the fictional saint was derived from the old Slavic god of love called Did. But the writer Karel Čapek believed the phrase originated as an allusion to the custom of referring to dates with the days of Catholic saints; for instance, taxes used to be paid twice a year – on St George’s Day in the spring, and St Havel’s Day in the autumn. Karel Čapek supposed that people created the phrase because it rhymes with ‘jindy’, meaning some other time – just like in this song.

Other ways of saying when hell freezes over in Czech include ‘až naprší a uschne’– when it’s rained and dried up again. This actually happens quite frequently so I’m not quite sure why it’s used in this sense, but it is. You can also say ‘až opadá listí z dubu’– when the oak sheds its leaves, which some species of oak apparently never do.

There is also the peculiar phrase ‘jednou za uherský rok’, literally once in the Hungarian year. This unusual expression comes from the times when Bohemian soldiers were hired to fight against the Turks in Hungary. They would be hired for a certain period of time – a year, perhaps, but were eventually forced to stay there much longer than that.

I’m afraid that’s all in this edition of SoundCzech. I hope you will tune in again sooner than on St Dynda’s Day. Good bye.