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Re: WHAT calendar for the current year 2012

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Tuesday, January 29, 2008, 12:30
On Jan 29, 2008 6:10 AM, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:

> I wasn't aware there was a dread of February - except that it's a pretty > miserable month in the northern hemisphere.
"Although for such a beastly month as February, Twenty-eight as a rule are plenty One year in every four his days shall be reckoned as NINE and twenty." It was originally the last month of the year and one of purification,
> getting ready for the new > year in March.
Well, *originally* originally, it didn't exist at all; the year started with March and ended with December, and then they just didn't bother keeping track of the time in between or something... and that'd be the Greeks who came up with that calendar. I swear the Romans didn't have an original bone in their collective body. :) Also it was the month into which Mercedonius (22 or 23
> days) was intercalated in alternate years to keep the year in sync with > the earth's movement around the sun.
And it was this split that led to the belief that it was unlucky. The other major contributing factor to the month lengths is that the Romans also thought that even numbers were unlucky, so their lunar (and later lunisolar) calendar had months of 29 and 31 days instead of the usual 29/30 day alternation. (This meant that even if the month lengths were chosen optimally, the lunar alignment would sometimes have to be more than a full day off the true phase of the moon). -- Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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R A Brown <ray@...>