I realize that in other parts of the world, seeing all these items on the internet about Black Friday probably confuses people who are not from the United States, or from English-speaking countries, anyway. I am pretty sure that everyone is smart enough to suss out that Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving here in the US, and that it is associated with Christmas shopping and with large sales. But why do we call it "Black Friday"? That sounds like something bad happens.
We do tend to associate black with bad stuff, and we even had a "Black Friday" before in our history that was bad--a financial crisis in 1869. But in this case, black is a good thing. See, most of the year, stores don't make a profit, and financial losses were traditionally recorded in red ink. But when Christmas shopping increases sales, stores finally become profitable, and profits are recorded in black ink. So it's called "Black Friday" because this is usually when stores start to operate "in the black", meaning "at a profit".
So, now you understand why retailers are very, very happy to see black, even though Black Friday can be a little scary, with all the crazy shoppers running over each other to get the best deals. They might have to re-name it "Black Eye-day!"
Image credit https://pixabay.com/en/words-wordcloud-cloud-black-friday-1797603/
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