Whether you call it a holiday, trip, annual leave, sabbatical, or leave of absense, vacations envoke different responses and emotions in many people.
The etymology is actually different for each of these words too. For instance, holiday was contracted from holy and day, originally representing special religious days. The word has evolved in general usage to mean any special day of rest (as opposed to regular days of rest such as the weekend). The word vacation specifically referred to the long summer breaks taken by courts of law in Normandy to help make people available for the harvesting of grapes.
As a trip, the term vacation is often used to represent time away from school or work, or even just a trip away from home, such as to a bed & breakfast, a friend out of town, or to the beach. In English speaking countries outside of the United States, the term is generally replaced with the word Holiday. Canadians use both words holiday and vacation interchangeably when referring to leaving work, home, or school for any type of trip.
Many companies have made a certain number of days off each year for workers in order to help facilitate work and life balance. In most of Canada, the legal minimum time is three weeks, and in Europe substantially higher. The United States doesn’t have a mandatory number of days assigned for paid vacation, and this is usually used as incentives to employees, but not regulated under Federal law. If an employee is terminated, generally they will receive compensation for vacation days which were accrued but not used. Many American companies do pay employees for national holidays, such as Independence Day, Memorial Day, and the like.
No matter what you call it, everyone seems to enjoy or need vacations. Please come back often and learn more about vacations as we will be updating our articles regularly!
