“Black Friday Sale Starts Now!” “Shop Black Friday Deals Now!” “Gear Up, It’s Black Friday” — so read the emails in my inbox and the banners on my search engine.

Well, yes, you shrug. What do you expect? It’s that time of year.

Except when I received said emails, and said banners began to appear, it was not, in fact, the day after Thanksgiving. It was not that day when, in order to kick-start the holiday shopping season, brands and department stores cut their prices and everyone rushes out to buy, buy, buy.

It was not that day that supposedly got its name because that is when stores start making profits and “go into the black.” Not that day that actually got its name in 1869, when two investors started a run on gold, which led to a crash, which led to dark days.

It was not, in other words, Black Friday at all. It was weeks beforehand.

Because really, there’s no such thing as Black Friday anymore, not in a literal sense. It long ago escaped — or transcended — its original meaning and location, leaping beyond United States borders to establish itself in other countries and continents , to become just another shopping day in a sea of shopping days. The term is now a conceptual synonym for the idea of “sale,” a Pavlovian cue to get you in the right frame of mind to open your wallet.