this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Linguistics Humor

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

The Romans had a 10 month calendar that started with March. Then later they added January and February to better match the lunar cycles in a year. Hence the mismatch of the numbered months.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was under the impression that July (Julious) and August (Augustus) were the two shoehored in

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

No they just renamed Quintilis (5th) and Sextilis (6th) to July and August

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It sort of bothers me that we don't change them back.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'm all about sex month

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That's even dumber!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I always assumed this is why the leap day is in february, since it would coincide with the end of the roman calendar

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it's in February because it's the shortest month, and it's the shortest month because it was the last one, with all the remaining days.

The thing I'm not sure about is why some months have 30 days, some 31 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Its the shortest month because it was considered the unluckiest month and they literally wanted it to be over sooner.

[–] Kecessa 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Weird that they didn't add 3 months for this reason 🤔

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

They had something like ten non-month holy days that the consoles were responsible for sticking in the calendar. This traditionally corrected for the drift. In the political turmoil leading up to to ceasar, this didn't get done. When ceasar imposed the new calendar, he had to insert like 40 extra days to the first year in orderto correct this.