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Bob, thank you--I have wanted to know what this was ever since I read Daphne du Maurier's "The House on the Strand" many years ago, and in recent times have had a much more personal reason. But the admittedly rather few efforts I'd made had come to naught. Ah, how satisfying to have that old puzzle piece finally fall into place!
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addict
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addict
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Bingley, thanks for that link - delightful. And (repeating some info I posted way back) the UK tax year still runs from April 6 to April 5, which was the old New Year plus the 11 days.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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More word-orientated, does anyone think supputation is due for a revival?
Bingley
Bingley
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The adjustment of calendars to make the artifical people calendar agree with the celestial calendar occasioned sporadic violence because people honestly believed that the various changes robbed them of days of their lives.
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Nick:
Long before there were calendars, people knew only a few things about their environment. The sunrise and sunset moved north and south over time. Days became longer, nights shorter, then seemed to stand still for a while, then reversed.
These observations were used by the smarter people to control the not-so-smart. How powerful is the chieftan who can tell his people, "The sun is going further and further north every morning. If it keeps going we will all die. BUT behold. I can stop that and make the sun come back. And to prove it, I will tell you when that is going to happen. Obey ME! I am not a crook. And I don't have anthrax either."
Then a few months later, the chief could tell the people when to start planting. And after that he could tell his people that the sun was going to go away, probably because they had done something not so good. Then he could tell them when it was time to harvest.
All of these events became rituals which people today call pagan (but which word has a bit too much baggage and I prefer pre-historical in this context.) The winter ritual became known as Saturnalia (though I don't remember why it got that name.) When the Christians looked around for a time to celebrate the birth of the Christ they selected Saturnalia because they could celebrate when others were celebrating Saturnalia and they wouldn't be noticed.
Easter is similar. The fertility rites during the springtime of the year were perfect camouflage for the beleaguered and secretive early Christians.
And to this day some Christians practice some rituals that are not strictly Christian. I happened to be on the Aran Islands some years ago when there was a spring fertility rite, which involved large bonfires and (apparently) some otherwise unacceptable extramarital rustlings in the bushes far removed from the light of the bonfires. I was told at the time that the two or three priests on the island simply left for the night.
Consuelo will probably be able to confirm that many Mexicans who are mainly Catholic also hedge their bets by paying homage to the old ways.
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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Supputation???
Eschew this blantant epenthetic travesty. The word is suppution!
Or did you mean suppuration?
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Carpal Tunnel
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the strange dates that people variously assign to the beginnings of seasons.
Around here the coldest period tends to center around January or early February. Winter in terms of snow and ice doesn't really get started (Sorry E) till about mid December. March is usually good for a healthy snow storm or two. The weather tends to lag behind the path of the sun.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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re: I happened to be on the Aran Islands some years ago when there was a spring fertility rite, which involved large bonfires and (apparently) some otherwise unacceptable extramarital rustlings in the bushes far removed from the light of the bonfires. I was told at the time that the two or three priests on the island
simply left for the night.
yup-- it caused no end of bother that the irish have not only keep many of the old ways, but have incorported so many of them into what used to be a Roman Catholic church. It was because of that, the one and only english pope insisted that England get involved in Ireland and set them straight.. and so started 400 year of english involvement with ireland! (this came about when he discovered in Rome, that many of the practice he thought were catholic, were really remnants of irish ways..)
All would have been fine, if ireland had keep quiet, but the irish have never been known for keeping quiet!
some have become institutionalized, like All Souls day..(Nov 1st) which is now a holy day of obligation.. it was the most somber and important days of the irish calendar.. and halloween, has become a big holiday in US.. nothing like what is was when i was a kid.. then it was only big in irish catholic neighborhoods, though kids everywhere liked it.. but we always had real outfits--not store bought costumes, and lots of Jack o'lanterns, and apples, and always a piece of candy left on the door mat before we went to bed!
(and my parents where citified, and removed from many of the old ways that the country folk practiced.)
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Carpal Tunnel
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people honestly believed that the various changes robbed them of days of their lives.
Granted that there was much ignorant objection.
However, the matter is not as simple as it sounds, in a commercial world. For example, suppose the terms of your home mortgage requires that you pay $1,000 on the first of each month. What happens when the calendar change is made and (say), the day after Sept. 5 is Sept. 16? Are you expected to pay the full $1000 on Oct. 1?
Such problems are the reason that England, which was in fact well-commercialized by the time it made the calendar-correction, needed extensive legislation to implement the change.
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stranger
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OP
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Many thanks to the lot of you, for most interesting replies, as well as intriguing diversions.
May I be so bold as to reiterate my secondary query, namely what the [Latinate] prefixes (in descending order) would be, ie Dec- Nov- Oct- Sept- ....
What would a similar Greek progression look like?
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