Re: Subterranea

> Aargh, another email saved from the clutches of gmail:
> --
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Stephen Mulraney <ataltane.conlang@...>
> Date: Apr 7, 2005 3:10 AM
> Subject: Re: Subterranea
> To: Patrick Littell <puchitao@...>
>
>
> On Apr 7, 2005 1:56 AM, Patrick Littell <puchitao@...> wrote:
>> On Apr 6, 2005 2:17 AM, David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...> wrote:
>
>>
>> Like determining units of length based on the king's stride and the
>> length of one of his finger bones.  An orcish second = the length of
>> the king's heartbeat, at rest, on average.  The day begins when he
>> rises and ends when he falls asleep.  A week, maybe when he needs a
>> manicure or haircut.  A month?  Well, maybe we leave that to the queen
>> to determine.
>
> It strikes me that week is a fairly artifical unit, being intermediate
> between
> a day (roughly one sleep-wake cycle) and a month (roughly one lunar
> cycle), not not really being significant otherwise.
Not all that arbitrary. It makes perfect sense to divide a lunar cycle in
to a bright period and a dark period; both of those are about 14 days
long. If you subdivide that further in to "bright growing brighter",
"bright growing darker", "dark growing darker" and "dark growing brighter"
phase, you end up with a month consisting of four seven day weeks.