Re: CHAT: Telling time (wasRe: The English/French counting system (WAS: number systems fromconlangs))

At 10:34 PM 9/15/03 -0400, you wrote:
>On Mon, Sep 15, 2003 at 09:33:46PM -0400, Isidora Zamora wrote:
> > with the solution to a con-calendar problem of my own.  One of my
> > concultures (the same one that has the syllabic consonants) reckons time on
> > a strict lunar calendar, 13 months to the year.  I've been wondering what I
> > was going to do with that one-day discrepancy every year.
>
>Sorry, but what one-day discrepancy?  13 lunar months is about 384
>days, which is a 19-day discrepancy!
>
>Thirteen 28-day months adds up to 364 days, but 28 days is a full
>day and a half less than a mean lunar month, so the months would
>get out of synch with the lunar phases faster than the year would
>get out of phase with the seasons.
Oops!  I did not know that a lunar month was longer than 28 days.  Now I
know.  Obviously, I need to read up on some very basic
astronomy!  (Actually, it's been only within the last couple years that I
even learned to tell from looking at the moon whether it was waxing or
waning.  A couple weeks ago, I was with my mother and grandmother and
discovered that they couldn't tell whether the moon was waxing or waning
just by looking at it.)

Many, many thanks for the correction!

Isidora

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