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What's "weird" is i think we were taught in school that July and August were added by the Caesars (with their names), causing the 2 month shift you mention. No
by jjtheblunt 3y ago
What's "weird" is i think we were taught in school that July and August were added by the Caesars (with their names), causing the 2 month shift you mention. Now i wonder where that idea came from, after this neat article.
- margalabargala 3y agoI was also taught this. I wonder if it has something to do with this, from the article: > On Sosigenes' advice, Caesar added another two never-before-seen months to the year 46BC, one of 33 days and one 34, to bring the calendar in line with the Sun. The additions made the year the longest in history at 445 days long, with 15 months. The two additional months were a one-time-only thing for that year, but I can see wires getting crossed and having that be a thing that was repeated for a while. July and August were never added, though, simply renamed.
- perihelions 3y agoIt's weird our calendar is named after actual people. The 1st French Republic briefly reversed this, but their solution didn't have staying power, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar#Months https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar#Mon... I wish everyone on HN a happy "Windy"! :) edit: Oh a cool fact in this tangent: the astronomer who discovered Planet 7 attempted to name it after a human—his patron, the British monarch George III. That would be an entertaining alternate history if it had gone that way! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#Name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#Name
- cyberax 3y agoMany languages do have meaningful names for months. E.g. in many Slavic countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_calendar
- Muromec 3y agoThe best part of course is we use similar month names, but as they are anchored to agricultural seasons, they correspond to different latin names in different countries.
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- keiferski 3y agoMy favorite is April in Polish, kwiecień, which means something like “month of flowers.”
- bee_rider 3y agoWe would insist it is named after George Washington instead, if that name’s stuck. The whole situation would be insufferable I think.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoWe don't do that for Georgetown, despite being in Washington DC and what George it's named after being somewhat unclear.
- perihelions 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Muromec 3y agoIt’s a month of Fury, followed by a month of Birch and then it’s a month of flovers in where I come from
- erehweb 3y agoAlso of interest - the Senate offered to rename November for Tiberius, but he declined, saying "What will you do if you have 13 Caesars?" (Cited from: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/welcome-to-tiberius%E2%80%99month.349424/ https://www.cointalk.com/threads/welcome-to-tiberius%E2%80%9...)
- hcs 3y agoAt the other end of that scale is Commodus, who wanted every month named after one of his 12 names: Lucius, Aelius, Aurelius, Commodus, Augustus, Herculeus, Romanus, Exsuperatorius, Amazonius, Invictus, Felix, and Pius
- resolutebat 3y agoSaparmurat Niyazov, President for Life of Turkmenistan, was comparatively modest when he renamed only January after himself and April after his mom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_renaming_of_Turkmen_months_and_days_of_week https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_renaming_of_Turkmen_month...
- notahacker 3y agoApparently they were renamed (from the no longer accurate Quintilius and Sextilius). Why they didn't get around to renaming the other numerical months, I don't know...
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- coliveira 3y agoThese two months were not added, they were just renamed after these emperors. In the minds of Romans, Julius Cesar and Augustus were gods.