this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Linguistics Humor

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Finnish:

oak month (or central month if you don't use current meaning of the word)

pearl month

ground month

clearing the forest of trees for field month

planting seed month

summer month (or plowing month by original meaning)

hay harvesting month

grain harvesting month

autumn month

muddy month

death month

yule month

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Finland would have a higher population if they would just get rid of Death Month.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's just a name, like the Forbidden Month or the Month of No Return, all the months have names like that in the Season of Terror.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

No, Finland becomes the Purge for a month, ensuring that only the strongest and craftiest Finns survive. If you see an old Finnish person, better respect them. They survived decades of annual battle royals.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a Scandinavian who wasn't familiar with Finish month names... Yeah, death month is a much more accurate name than November. Ugh.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"clearing the forest of trees for field month"

Favorite month for Amazon forest

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Idk why Japan is being credited for being the logical one when they simply copied the Chinese system/characters

Chinese weekdays make a lot more sense as well

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Any system that does not have 13 months of 28 days each, plus a remainder day to keep pace with the sun, is not logical.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Having a "remainder day" is weird, but it's hard to avoid. It really sucks that 365 doesn't divide nicely into much at all. 5 and 73 are the only non-trivial answers. five 73 day months? Can't even call it a month at that point.

I guess 13x28 + 1 does indeed make most sense...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

There's always a remainder day, and it's not precisely 24 hours. That's why we have leap years and sometimes leap seconds. You could get rid of that by cramming all of the time into one day of varying length. This year, maybe it's 29.75 hours. Maybe next year it's 31. Astronomers and physicists could fight it out and see how closely they can match the previous year.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

May as well embrace the weird, cuz we dont orbit in exactly 365 days anyway. So theres gonna be leap year type adjustments anyway.

1 odd day from 13x28 is the perfect excuse for a new holiday too. And avoids having to figure out is it a weekday or not. It gets to be neither, a unique special holiday not tied to religion, nationality, culture, politics, etc (though many oppose it for reasons within those topics).

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

The Baha'i calendar is 19 months with 19 days, and a 4 or 5 day celebration in between months 18 and 19. The year starts the day that coincides with March 21.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pretty much all of East Asia is a knockoff of China.

Alright, so I assume I started WWIII there, better get to my bunker. /s

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Nah, you didn't call it Western Taiwan, you should be good.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I just realized that about September-December, that's mindblowing and hilarious

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (3 children)

the roman year started on march 1 so thats how they numbered months. English never caught up.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Neither did other European languages

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

*some. For example Croatian, Czech, Polish and Ukrainian are using local names.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Better yet they only had 10 months, and the remaining 60ish days of the year were just 乁⁠(⁠ ⁠•⁠_⁠•⁠ ⁠)⁠ㄏ

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

The Roman year originally started in March (the month of Mars) because that's when the war season started. January and February were at the end of the year and originally weren't named at all.

But at some point, the Romans had a problem with one of their politicians. He had a one year term. To get rid of him, they moved the new year to January. It was supposed to be temporary but somehow we're still living with the results of that lifehack.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I hope the guy responsible for that got stabbed

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago
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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago

Reiwa 5, everyone knows when all the emperors acceded to the throne, silly.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Polish:

A contacting one
Fierce
War God
A flowery one
Earth Goddess
Maggot (especially cochineal*), but also knawel
A linden one
A sickle one
A heathery one
A shives one
Leavesfall
A lump/clod one

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Romans: having 10 months in a year 2000 years before the metric system.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

they're so metric even their calendar is metric

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And they're not even correctly numbered! Stupid Julius and Augustus ruined friggin EVERYTHING

Sep - 7 Oct - 8 Nov - 9 Dec - 10

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As someone else already pointed out: it was January and February that were added later. July and August just replaced the old names.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To add for anyone that's new to this, January and February were originally considered not a real part of the year because everyone was hunkered down for the winter.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

We should do that again.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

The Romans had a 10 month calendar that started with March. Then later they added January and February to better match the lunar cycles in a year. Hence the mismatch of the numbered months.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was under the impression that July (Julious) and August (Augustus) were the two shoehored in

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

No they just renamed Quintilis (5th) and Sextilis (6th) to July and August

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I always assumed this is why the leap day is in february, since it would coincide with the end of the roman calendar

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it's in February because it's the shortest month, and it's the shortest month because it was the last one, with all the remaining days.

The thing I'm not sure about is why some months have 30 days, some 31 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Its the shortest month because it was considered the unluckiest month and they literally wanted it to be over sooner.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

English got lore

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's always rubbed me the wrong way that Oktoberfest doesn't happen in October OR the 8th month.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

thats because the roman year started in march and october was the 8th month in their calendar.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Naw, its cause it used to start in october but they moved it to september for better weather.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Oktoberfest ends in October.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, but try counting the days in those months

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Going to memorize the elements

Traditional week

  • Sunday
  • Moonday
  • Fireday
  • Waterday
  • Woodday
  • Goldday
  • Soilday

But a new version just dropped:

Modernized week

  • Hydrogenday
  • Heliumday
  • Lithiumday
  • Berylliumday
  • Boronday
  • Carbonday
  • Nitrogenday
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I'm slightly mentally slow and still don't remember all of the months in a year. I'm 23 years old.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

i did read that as "moth names"

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