ろ〇〇〇〇 ろ〇〇〇 <juuitchan@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Month names. Month names. Who needs month names, anyway? Do we name
the
> hours of the day?
Medieval monks divided the day into eight Canonical Hours, named Matins,
Lauds, Prime, Terse, Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Compline.
> Do we name the days *within* each month?
The French Revolutionary Calendar, invented in 1793, and Auguste Comte's
Positivist Calendar, invented in 1849, both included provisions for
naming the days of the year.
> Tell the
> Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans that THEY need month names.
I promise not to make the Japanese use month names, if they promise not
to make me reset my year-numbering scheme to 1 every time a new U.S.
president takes office.
> Also, it is my understanding that some European languages do not name
the
> days of the week (except maybe Sunday or something).
In the Hebrew calendar, only Shabbat (Saturday) has a name; the rest of
the days are numbered. In Russian and Portuguese, most of the day names
are numeric.
Well, anyway, the point is that locales are supposed to reflect, not
dictate, the way humans deal with concepts like date and time and
numbers and currency and sorting.
-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
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