What is the meaning, history, and current popularity of "of a Monday" (or Tuesday, or Wednesday, etc.)?

I was watching a 1934 Hollywood film today and one of the American characters used the phrase, Of a Tuesday. I don't think I'd ever heard an American use this in real life or in a film before then, even though I watch a lot of 1930s and 1940s Hollywood movies. I have since heard it used occasionally in films from about the 1920s to the 1960s, but I have still never heard it used outside of films.

Perhaps this, like the MidAtlantic accent in the first half of the century, was and is something used by actors, and in this case writers, far more commonly than by regular (non-theatrical) Americans.

Does phrase Of a Tuesday simply mean the same as On a Tuesday? Is it a commonly used phrase? Has the meaning or popularity changed significantly over time? Are there differences in meaning or usage between British and American English?

So, what are the meaning(s) and usage(s), history, and current popularity of both in American and British English?

Solution 1:

If your question is about the use of of before a day of the week, then the answer is that, at least in some varieties of British English, it is used to mean ‘at some time during, in the course of, on’. This use has its origins in Old English and has been in continuous use for 1500 years. Here are just three examples from the Oxford English Dictionary:

Always of a Monday morning he was on the dock a good half-hour before the expected arrival of the boat for town.

Mr. More . . . expounds the universe and the Platonical soul to 'em in St. Clement's Church of a Monday afternoon.

Kippers of a Friday, roast of a Sunday.

Solution 2:

I hadn't thought that construction particularly BrE. Do you mean Way out West (1937) ? He died of a Tuesday is a very ancient Musical Hall joke in which case Stan Laurel is the missing link. If not, what is the film - maybe it had an English writer.

I think the accent (Katharine Hepburn is the worst offender) is usually referred to as Mid-Atlantic - I also found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Theater_Standard