Septa means 7, Octa means 8, and Deca means 10…

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calendar_icon…so why is it that September is the 9th month, October the 10th, and December the 12th?

Ok, let’s think about this a little bit further.

— February is the shortest month of the year
— On leap years, it’s the month to which we add a day
— Why is it not the last month of the year?

I say it should be. If March were the first month of the year, that would make September the 7th month, October the 8th month, December the 10th month, and February (the shortest month of the year), the last month…

Tell me this doesn’t make perfect sense (logically)… But in the meantime, I’m going to go tell my boss I need March 1st off for new years.

 

 

3 Comments

  1. Kenneth Stacey
    Apr 12, 2016 @ 06:37:02

    The name of ‘October’ comes from the Latin word for eight. ‘October’ was the eighth month in the Roman calendar. The Romans apparently borrowed their first calendar from the Greeks. The earliest known Roman calendar consisted of 10 months and a year of 304 days. The Romans seem to have ignored the remaining 60 days, which fell in the middle of winter. The 10 months were named Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, & December. The last six names were taken from the words five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten. Romulus, the legendary first ruler of Rome, is supposed to have introduced this calendar about 738 B.C. Two months, January and February, were added later to the calendar by the Roman ruler Numa and eventually placed at the beginning so that the number months have since then appeared in the calendar out of their proper order. When Julius Caesar became the ruler of Rome, he was disturbed by the bad condition of the calendar and took step to correct it. Caesar ordered the Romans to disregard the Moon in calculating their calendars. He divided the year into 12 months of 31 and 30 days, except for February. The Romans renamed Quintilis to honour Julius Caesar, giving us July. The next month, Sextilis, was renamed August by the Roman Senate to honour the emperor Augustus.
    Source(s):
    [redacted – 404]
    GracieM · 8 years ago

    Reply

    • tbare
      Apr 12, 2016 @ 07:36:31

      Thanks, Kenneth — I assumed there was a similar reason (obviously without all the details), but never took the time to research it.

      As an aside, I removed the source URL you posted – it came back with a 404 (page not found). It looked like the end of the address was missing.

      Reply

    • Vinay
      Aug 23, 2017 @ 01:01:09

      that is good knowledge and good info shared. thanks

      Reply

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