Re: [LEAPSECS] building consensus

From: Rob Seaman <seaman_at_NOAO.EDU>
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 07:19:39 -0700

Clive D.W. Feather wrote:

> March was the first month of the year; look at the derivation of
> "September", for example.

Makes the zero vs. one indexing question of C and FORTRAN programmers
look sane. I've pointed people to the whole 7, 8, 9, 10 sequence
from September to December on those (admittedly rare) occasions when
the issue has come up. Presumably other languages agree in usage,
which would be another indicator of the age of the names of the months.

> The *seven* day week was, but before then the Romans had a rigid
> *eight* day week.

The latter, of course, persisted all the way into the 1960's, as
immortalized by the Beatles' song.

Rob
NOAO
Received on Thu Jun 08 2006 - 07:19:55 PDT