Ever wondered If "Oct-" means 8 and "Sept-" means 7, why is October the 10th month and September the 9th?

If you still remember your geometry class, you will know that an Octagon has 8 sides. In Chemistry class we also learnt that Octane contains 8 carbon atoms. "Oct" seems to indicate the number 8.

You probably also know that a septuagenarian is someone in his 70's. "Sept-" also indicates 7...but why is that different for our months? Why is October not the 8th month..what of September, why is it not the 7th?

The fact is that they used to tally! October used to be the 8th month! September used to be the 7th and we used to have 10 months in a year! The Roman year used to start with spring (1 March) which makes September to December the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th months.

The original Roman calendar on which the
modern calendar was based is as follows:

Martius (31 days)
Aprilis (30 days)
Maius (31 days)
Iunius (30 days)
Quintilis (31 days)
Sextilis (30 days)
Septembris (30 days)
Octobris (31 days)
Novembris (30 days)
Decembris (31 days)

The first month of the year used to be March...yea, the third one now! From the above, the days add up to only 304 - this was because the winter days after the end of December and before the beginning of the following March were not assigned to any particular month!

Then Pompilius came along and added what are now January and February, but instead of sensibly tacking them onto the end, he pushed the others up with Ianuarius and Februarius at the top.

Julius Caesar further reformed the calendar
(Julian calendar). His successor Augustus
renamed Quintilis as Iulius (July) to honor of
Julius and Sextilis as Augustus (August) in
honour of... himself.

Julius Caeser

THE REAL CULPRITS

January and February are the real culprits for the disparity of the names of the months vs their position on the calender.

ADDITIONAL FACT:

September is also special in that it's spelt with 7 different letters and 9 total letters --
numbers which correspond elegantly to both
its root meaning and its calendar placement.
No other month can do this trick.

Source: http://samimath.com/forums/topic/if-oct-means-8-and-sept-means-7-why-is-october-the-10th-month-and-september-the-9th/

cc Lalasticlala, Mynd44

Enlightening

lol. see scientific explanation!!!













I didn't read the article thou!!!

oldfoolnigger:
lol. see scientific explanation!!!













I didn't read the article thou!!!

It's not too long Baba

Wonderful and educational! Thank you OP, I have learned something new today. It is nice to see that there are some reasonable people on Nairaland posting reasonable things instead of celebrity wedding scandals and boring tales of a jobless kidnapper.

Lucario007:
Wonderful and educational! Thank you OP, I have learned something new today. It is nice to see that there are some reasonable people on Nairaland posting reasonable things instead of celebrity wedding scandals and boring tales of a jobless kidnapper.

Thanks for the kind words Baba

Op wehdone. I've learnt something new this week from nl. I doubt our mo.ds will move this to FP..

very educative!
this will never make it to front page. but if it's Tonto vs Churchill or Snakes now na fp in 60secs

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For real

Better than all these Evans news

Well said! Exactly what what I was telling someone while arguing why I think it is silly to want to start the new year by being physically present in church. The calendar is a human invention, and there's nothing magical about the day that is chosen as the starting point.

The only reason Jan 1 is the first day of the new year is because a fellow human woke up and said that's how the calendar should be. The Jewish calendar starts around the period that is late March in the Gregorian calendar, and I think the Hijiri calendar starts around July.

Very informative.

Bahddo:
Well said! Exactly what what I was telling someone while arguing why I think it is silly to want to start the new year by being physically present in church. The calendar is a human invention, and there's nothing magical about the day that is chosen as the starting point.

The only reason Jan 1 is the first day of the new year is because a [b]fellow human woke up and said that's how the calendar should be. [/b]The Jewish calendar starts around the period that is late March in the Gregorian calendar, and I think the Hijiri calendar starts around July.

Very informative.

yea some people just came up with Jan 1 as the beginning of the year but since most people do not read history, they get decieved to believing it's a special thing..the speciality is also our own invention.

But sincerely, it makes sense for the year to start in March.

March is the beginning of Spring and in Nigeria it is when the first seed sowed in January comes alive (corn etc)
It marks a fresh beginning

Glad to come across this thread. Nice one op.