fred@umcp-cs.UUCP (09/16/83)
From: chrys@alberta.UUCP What is the significance behind our 12 months? Why twelve and not, say, four encompassing the four seasons? Why are they named the way they are? . . . Chris Helmers ( ...!ubc-vision!alberta!chrys ) Well, you'll notice that the months SEPTember, OCTober, NOVember and DECember contain the Latin words for seven, eight, nine and ten. As I understand it, this is left from the original Greek or Roman calendar which only observed ten months, all of which were rather boringly named ``first month'', ``second month'', etc. After the ten months came this rather boring period about sixty days long, during which nothing interesting ever happened (after all, it's the middle of winter) an so was not worthy of being divided into months. Someone eventually decided to do this anyway, an so we got January and February. After this they started renaming the old numbered months for gods and rulers, but only got as far as Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar. Fred Blonder harpo!seismo!umcp-cs!fred