Nobody needs to know all those annoying details, but once you know, the joke doesn't work so well, at least it didn't for me.
Also I believe that the Moon deserves some respect. It makes nights less scary, inspires whimsical humans and provided a convenient way to measure middle-length periods of time when a precise calendar hadn't been developed... many moons ago.
I'm also making a comical absurdity just fyi. Do people like this exist? I don't know
But in a way that doesn't work right.
> Months have other gods's names: Janus, Phoebe, Mars, Aphrodite, Maya, Juno... Julius and Augustus were emperors and from that point are just numerals, starting at March. It was associated with Mars because Romans used to go to war in the Spring.
Yes? That's a mess and that's basically what the tweets said. They didn't mention the emperors but that makes it even messier. I'm not sure what you're arguing there. There's no "perfectly understandable" reason for having some gods some emperors and some wrong numbers.
It works great for the purpose that it was used: counting groups of days when regular humans didn't have the luxury of more precise calendars.
The part that doesn't "work right" is that the different natural cycles used to measure time are not multiples of others, so adjustements are always needed. That's why calendar is complex, it was fixed repeatedly until it doesn't drift.
Weeks and months are not kept because we don't know better, but because they're useful units for social reasons.
There's no "perfectly understandable" reason for having some gods some emperors and some wrong numbers.
That's a different part of the comment, addressing the hint that there's a religious reason for the calendar.
There are several eras used by different countries, and the common western calendar has several layers: weekdays seem to be of Sumerian origin, months at least in Latin and other European languages come from Roma and the AD year counting is "Christian" and widely used maybe because the last major useful adjustement was this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar
But it seems they didn't bother to change the names of previous layers. If something works, just leave it alone. You may argue that there are more "rational" ways to organize time measurement. I would recommend to read what Asimov had to say on the subject.
If you want a quarter month then have a quarter month.
Having a set of days that pretends to be a quarter month but rapidly falls out of sync is worse than having no quarter month at all.
If you gave any other reason for seven days, I wouldn't say it doesn't work right. But that reason makes the length of the week supremely half-assed.
> But it seems they didn't bother to change the names of previous layers. If something works, just leave it alone. You may argue that there are more "rational" ways to organize time measurement. I would recommend to read what Asimov had to say on the subject.
You're conflating two very different problems when you talk about it like that. Trying to make the units line up is legitimately difficult. Bad naming is not because of legitimate difficulty.
So you want to reform the week, the only time cycle that hasn't been altered in millennia to sync it with... what exactly?
Different groups of time have different goals. Scientific and technical applications only use the second. Years are useful both for agriculture and astronomy. Year subdivisions, weeks and months are useful for legal, social and personal purposes: weekends, holidays, celebrations, birthdays, embarrassing familiar reunions and all that.
They neither have to be in sync with anything, just being useful to track days in a year, nor they need to be mathematically pleasant, any programmers worth their salt will write you a perpetual calendar generator in five minutes.
No. I don't want to change the week at all. I'm just saying that "the week is 7 days so it's a quarter month" is broken as hell.
It used to be numbers earlier, Quintilis and Sextilis were renamed for them.
Apparently the Romans did not find hard naming even persons - they just went by numbers, as in Secundus, Quintus, Sextus, Septimus, Octavius, etc.
January, March, and June are named for Janus, Mars, and Juno. February, April, and May are not known to be named for any god, nor is there any particular reason to believe they are.
May is named after Maia, the goddess who oversees the growth of plants.
Compare what Ovid wrote about the name of May:
> You may ask whence I suppose the name of the month of May to be derived. The reason is not quite clearly known to me [because there are too many theories].
[J. G. Frazer's translation for the Loeb series]
That the name honors a Maia is one of three theories he goes on to present, the others being that May is named after the personification of Majesty [maiestas] and that May is named in honor of society's elders [maiores].
For April, on the other hand: classical Latin Aprīlis, use as noun (short for mēnsis Aprīlis month of April) of masculine of Aprīlis of April, of uncertain origin; perhaps < Etruscan.
(Oxford English Dictionary is a great resource. In the UK you can often get free online access through free membership of a public library.)
Absolutely true, but difficult to get access from the US without a university affiliation.
However, it isn't obvious that the OED is a better source on the meaning of a classical Latin month name than a classical Roman is. It's certainly possible, but not close to a slam dunk. And the OED is appropriately hesitant to say that it knows the origin of the name.
I'd be curious when the entry was updated, except that I can imagine the entry for "May" being updated for quite a few other reasons than to review the etymology.
(I might as well note that Ovid also presents two theories for the name of June, one that it is named in honor of Juno and one that it is named in honor of either the goddess Youth [Iuventas] or youths [iuvenes] in general, forming a contrast with May. There appears to be no real distinction between honoring Youth or honoring youths, despite the fact that honoring Maiestas and honoring the maiores are explicitly presented as separate theories.
I would say the June-from-Juno theory is on much stronger ground than the May-from-Maia theory simply because Juno is so much more important a god, but that is also open to debate.)
Curiosity should be rewarded!
"This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2001; most recently modified version published online September 2022)."
And there's a link to "Previous version: OED2 (1989)" where the etymology is given as: ... "The etymology of the Latin name is obscure; some ancient writers connected it with the name of the goddess Maia."
(Since you read Ovid probably there's nothing new for you in that!)
You already have 2 values: year and day, and they do not divide nicely. But they serve a practical purpose in a modern society, so we have to deal with them. The moon does not, but adds a third factor.
Modern calenders are designed to determine when people will work and when they will rest. The purpose is entirely different in our time.
Current calender’s historical roots only start from Ptolemaic and early Roman periods when the Romans created a planetary week. But it didn’t gain popularity especially in Western Europe. So they adopted the 6 day Jewish week and one day of the Lord’s day of rest.
Only where there was Roman rule and expansion, the new calender and planetary week was installed. Because the Romans needed to keep track of time to monitor work of their conquered territories.
Everywhere else, it was still the lunar calender/sun rise+set for time keeping and solar calender tracking the sun for seasons.
I hear you. I am just saying ‘modern’ is ‘western’ and the west is using time to clock in and clock out people who work. That’s for why if you are rich and don’t have to work, every day is weekend and every hour can be the proverbial ‘happy hour’.
In our time, calenders and clocks are used to track our obligations and when to file tax returns. I still follow the Indian Vedic lunisolar calender for moon cycles and seasons because it keeps me grounded and sane. I feel connected to the earth and sky.
It takes some effort to compartmentalise time for different purposes, but it gives me comfort and escape from the modern world. I am not disagreeing or trying to discredit the western and modern calender. I am just sharing what works for me and the origins of it from my culture/religion.
ETA: calendar has been misspelt as calender throughout. I think I did it once and for some reason, auto complete keeps using it. I don’t want to search and correct every spelling mistake. So this is a blanket correction.
We now have apps that inform us. But. If we can read a lunar calendar, we can organise our life around the moon cycles.
There is a reason the word ‘lunatic’ is derived from ‘lunar’. We are mostly made of water. Luna definitely has an effect on our bodies and our moods. Why isn’t it a good thing to understand the ecosystems around us that is time and space..and the ecosystem with us that is mind and body?
I accept that the moon has effects in the tides. As for the rest...
I have heard that before, but every time it was by someone who standed to gain something from me believing that - that when Moon is on the 7th House and Jupiter Aligns With Mars then Peace will Guide the Planets and Love Will Steer me to open my wallet and register to this self-help course.
Do you have any reference to a credible source that can prove that the Moon has those other effects you mention? Something like a test with a significant enough number of people involve, and a control group.
> Why isn’t it a good thing to understand the ecosystems around us that is time and space..and the ecosystem with us that is mind and body?
I strive very hard to understand the ecosystems around us (And beyond - from the most distant galaxies to how the atoms and sub-atomic particles make us work how we work). But I use Science for that.
However, I am a student of astrology tho’…maybe I can see how your natal Moon will steer you. But I am not sure how much you will appreciate it being invested in Science and all that. Take care.
When was the last time you planned a holiday for the waning phase of the moon?
We are really not all the same. HN is a big old forum and there is no such thing as a normal response.
That person was describing their personal reaction to ... something. I don't think that proscribing dogma is helpful in response.
I mean, it's not "unacceptable", free speech and all. It's just silly to jump in and "well actually" a joke, especially when the explanation is kind of why the joke was funny.
Do I really need to spell it out?
Don’t yuck someone’s yum.
Let people enjoy things.
Don’t rain on the parade.
Months are related to Moon's orbit, weeks to its phases. Months have other gods's names: Janus, Phoebe, Mars, Aphrodite, Maya, Juno... Julius and Augustus were emperors and from that point are just numerals, starting at March. It was associated with Mars because Romans used to go to war in the Spring.
Asimov had an excellent chapter on calendar in his divulgative book The Universe, explaining why it's not so easy to design a regular "logical" calendar.