BS: Numbering the Years...

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Apr 15 - 05:51 PM

Not to forget the months of Revolutionary France: Boozy, Misty, Frosty, Snowy, Rainy, Windy, Sprouty, Flowery, Grassy, Corny, Sweaty and Fruity.

Or: Brumaire, Frimaire, Nivôse, Pluviôse, Ventôse, Germinal, Floréal, Prairial, Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor.

Only Thermidor is remembered now, as the end of the Jacobin Terror and the start of a different one.

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Apr 15 - 06:04 PM

And then only because some chef named a way of cooking lobster after it...

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: GUEST,#
Date: 18 Apr 15 - 07:14 PM

Name the days of the week after the seven dwarfs. It would be helpful to those of us who can only ever remember six.

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: Monique
Date: 18 Apr 15 - 07:42 PM

Guest, you forgot Vendémiaire. What will we drink if grapes aren't harvested!

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Apr 15 - 10:32 PM

To get us started:

Sunday
Monday
Earthday
Humpday
?
?
?



Sunmonth
Moonmonth
Mercury month
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto

OK- what is the name of the remaining month?

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: Thompson
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 03:27 AM

That 'BCE/CE' (Before Common Era/Common Era) thing really annoys me. It's a pure anti-Christian push by academics wishing not to offend anyone who might not want to date their time from the supposed date of the birth of Christ - and yet using the birth of Christ without admitting it. I can't see the point of this pretence, or of shedding a two-thousand-year-old dating tradition. And I couldn't call myself a Christian.

What I could call myself is a researcher, and I've discovered that my normal way of writing the date - April 19, 2015 - is absolutely useless for research purposes. If I'm looking, say, for a letter written in, say, June 1915, I have to search through all letters written by my subjects in 1912, because I can't find them though a search for "June 1912". I am attempting to switch the habit of years and start writing the date instead as 19 April 2015.

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: Musket
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 03:47 AM

Welcome to the sane world of The UK. We remain bemused that we leave you to your own devices for a measly 250 years and you forget how to write dates...

The AD/BC stuff is interesting. The BCE etc may well be technically more fitting but most of us aren't offended by tradition. The idiots pushing technically correct terminology seem to be the sort who say "I mass 100Kg" as technically you "weigh" 9.81KN.

AD/BC is purely perpetuating a tradition rather than a reality. No problem with that per se. As western religion is falling and dying out, it becomes important to keep at least some quaint heritage aspects of our past. However absurd they seem to rational people.

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 08:41 AM

I think it's the 'Domini' bit that bothers most people (religious and not), rather than the supposed time of a supposed event.

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: Musket
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 09:04 AM

It doesn't bother me any more than any other myth, fantasy or fairy story. In years to come we might consider it quaint in a similar way that Gibbet Lane may be a lovely country lane with cows in the fields and children riding their bikes, but let's not dwell on where the name came from eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: Ed T
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 09:17 AM

"Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough."
~ George Bernard Shaw

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 04:39 AM

Ebbie, it would be more rational to name the days in a simply numerical fashion, though whether we begin with one or zero is a matter of taste and debate. Probably better one as we wouldn't have to argue over whether to call it Zeroday, Noughtday, Nullday, Zilchday, Sodallday etc. etc. This scheme carries an immense advantage in that all those jobs you never got round to, will get done Oneday.

As for the months, I think Unumber, Duumber, Triumber, Quadrember, Quinquember, Sexember, etc. has a certain appeal, though New Year would have to be at the end of February if we are to keep the existing months.

We could also avoid religious offence by renumbering our years according to some non- emotional standard. The Gregorian year is a pretty good approximation to the true solar year, so we'll keep that, perhaps wuth Sir John Herschel's modification. I would propose that adding 50000 to our Gregorian year (with a one- year fiddle for BC dates) would bring all human dates historical and archaeologically determined by radiocarbon dating onto a common positive scale. It also allows us to date Neanderthals if we are so inclined.

So today could be Oneday, 20th of Duumber 52015.

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 06:02 AM

Hebrew names for the days of the week in fact translate as First Day (=Sunday), Second Day (=Monday), &c; ending on Shabat [= Sabbath, based on the Hebrew for #7], which is Saturday. We could all do that without too much trouble, in our own languages, couldn't we?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: Gda Music
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 05:29 PM

Some would puzzle that in the life insurance world the question always asked is "what`s your next birthday?"

GJ

Subject: RE: BS: Numbering the Years...
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Apr 15 - 04:06 AM

GUEST, the Quakers so named the days and months. Mary Leadbeater, the Quaker postmistress of Ballitore in Kildare, writes about sending a letter to Naas to give a good character to a neighbour, Pat Lyons, who was likely to be lynched by Captain Chenery's yeomen:

'When it was perceived that the note came from a female, it was treated with contempt "Women did not care what they said, and it was from a woman." On further inspection they observed the date; "Quakers tell truth, and it was from a Quaker" — and accordingly Pat was liberated.'

The reason 'observing the date' made the difference was that Mary Leadbeater had written it in the Quaker style, eg 'First day, fourth month, 1798'.