"How did you celebrate Black Friday Festival?"

Please, it drives me crazy.

I message a quick question to an English speaker the following question: "How did you celebrate Black Friday Festival?"

He told me it's cute/funny...kind of laughing at me.

1) What is the correct question to ask? (maybe because I forgot to add the "S" Black Friday's Festival)?

2) Is there any other implicit meaning for what I wrote? what's funny?

Thanks for the quick response, Aimee

Solution 1:

"Black Friday" is not something you celebrate; it is something in which you participate or take advantage of. In other words, you shop 'til you drop (which is a cute saying which means you shop until you are exhausted but happy--happy that you acquired so many great sales and bargains at the mall). Black Friday is also not a holiday, in the sense that Thanksgiving and Christmas are holidays which are celebrated in certain predictable ways, culturally speaking.

A better question to ask a person, then, would be

What did you do on Black Friday?

Or,

Did you find some great deals on Black Friday?

Or,

Did you shop 'til you dropped on Black Friday?

Or,

How far from the stores did you have to park your car at the mall on Black Friday? Half-way to Kankakee?

By the way, the friend to whom you addressed the question was probably amused by the way in which you regarded (and spoke about) Black Friday. That's all. There's no need to be offended.

Solution 2:

Well, when you say "Black Friday Festival" you might sound like you are making a joke on the event itself - large crowds, people all around going crazy looking for the best deals, etc. For me, it would totally work as a joke about the people going crazy.

But it is mainly what was said before :)

Solution 3:

No, it's not grammar.

But, there's no "Black Friday Festival." It is not "celebrated."

The name comes from the day that retail merchants begin to make money for the year, as they were "in the red" and spending more than they were making from January til the holidays, and the beginning of the shopping season means they'll go "in the black," financially speaking.

It's to the benefit of merchants, a few people. It's caused by the purchasing of those who need to buy things to celebrate other, real holidays - like Christmas - by the many people.

Certainly not a cause for holiday.

You'd be better to ask, "how did your holiday shopping go?"

Leave the issue of "black Friday" to the merchants for whom it matters, not the shoppers.

Solution 4:

The current answers are great as they explain the "correctness" aspects. What the don't say is why it might be funny to talk about "celebrating Black Friday" as a "festival".

Festivals that are celebrated are "fun" and often have religious or spiritual aspects. They are also seen as being personal, private, and family time. Black Friday is in some counties (USA and UK) associated with a minority of riots and fist fights of people trying to grab TVs and other special offers that are on sale. It doesn't look like fun to most people. The press and media in those countries focus on those bad and sensational aspects of poor behaviour (although clearly with millions of purchases the bad behaviour is insignificant).

So in the context of Black Friday being a commercial event designed to make money, which had the press show the public punching each other, it is simply amusing to hear it referred to as a "celebration" and "festival". A comedian in the USA and UK might make a joke about this such as: "I spent some quality time with my family celebrating Black Friday; my wife and I had to wrestle a crowd of people in Target whilst our two kids bought the last 50 inch flat screen TV."