Re: The English/French counting system (WAS: number systems fromconlangs)

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003, Isidora Zamora wrote:

> >*ANother confusingness of you northerners is that you insist on starting
> >the school year half way through. Gah, calendars were invented for a
> >reason! :)
>
> So when do you start school in the Southern Hemisphere?
In Victoria, Primary/Secondary runs from the second week day after
Australia Day (26 January) till October/November/December; Tertiary runs
from March to October. (Not counting extra holidays: primary/secondary
have three two-week breaks: the first normally around easter, the second
in early July, the third in mid Septemeber, diving the year into four
terms of approximately ten weeks each. Uni has six weeks in June/July and
a week at Christmas and in mid September, dividing the year into two
semesters.)

The case for Uni is the same throughout the country (even to the
point of ignoring state public holidays and Melbourne Cup Day,* a PH in
Melbourne but not the rest of Victoria, except the two minutes that's a
defacto holiday in the entire country). The Primary/Secondary times
are approximately the same (except in Tasmania when they have three
trimesters). I know it's similar in New Zealand, and I imagine it is
elsewhere.

* Melbourne Cup Day is a public holiday for a horse race. The Melbourne
Cup is probably the biggest (important, not size) horse race in Australia
and is alternatively known as the race that stops a nation. It used to be
the tradition for regional cups of this nature to cause a public holiday
in the city concerned. (Though it isn't official, I imagine the rest of
the state shuts down too: there isn't much you can do when the majority of
the state isn't doing much. Also, 'Melbourne' here refers not to the
political entity of the City of Greater Melbourne, which encompasses the
CBD and a few very inner suburbs, but the entire metropolitan area.)

So the point is, the academic year corresponds to the calendar year. It
means that if you subtracted 1990 from the year, you would know what
grade/year I was in at primary/secondary school. (Actually, it means that
the summer holidays happen during the summer. I doubt in these days of
airconditioning this would be much of a concern, so it's time for you
nothern hemisphereans to join us!)

--
Tristan                  <kesuari@...>

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still
be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
                -- Snoopy

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