steward (11/13/82)
It has been some time since the heyday of the discussion on
calendars, leap years, et al. and, during that lull in conversa-
tion, my mind has been churning some calendrical musings. Now,
to release some half-digested thoughts:
I think it's curious that we number our days before they're past.
Before the first day of the year is over, we call it January 1.
We seem to do the same with years. Hence, the once-common
phrase, "in the year of our Lord, 1215," does not assume that
1,215 years have past. In addition, I have never seen a refer-
ence to the year 0 nor do we have a January 0.* However, as any-
one who has spent the night on the computer can attest, we do as-
sume a zero when we count hours of the day.**
Now, to speculate, I think this (do I say illogical?) method of
counting days and years came from a period before the "West" was
introduced to the idea of zero -- probably a period when Janus
was looking both ways or, as someone on the net believes, back-
wards. When did we start counting hours? No doubt, sometime
after zero.
* If there was a year 0, tell me whether it was a leap year!
Sorry, "cal" starts at year 1.
** Diurnal folks can try the command "leave 0".