By William M. Dowd
Dear Professor Know-It-All:
Today is the first day of October, the 10th month of the year. But, as I learned in Latin class in school, “octo” means eight. What gives?
(Signed) Confusidus Maximus
Dear Max:
You must have missed history class, where they would have told you that October was the eighth month in the old Roman calendar, so the name fit when it first was used. However, great thinkers have a habit of diddling around with such things as calendars, so what starts out as one thing often winds up being something else entirely.
We now use the Gregorian calendar, which wound up placing this transitional month — midway between the true seasons — in 10th place.
To further complicate the process, the Gregorian calendar didn’t start on the first of the year, or the first of a month, for that matter. It was adopted on October 4, 1582, and the next day was called October 15.
That happened because the new calendar was constructed to match up as closely as possible to what is known as the “tropical year,” the time it takes for the Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun. Before that, there was about a 10- or 11-day difference between the actual time of year and the calendar time, so people were always putting away their summer clothes too soon or getting to an important cocktail party too late.
So, Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the day after October 4 would be October 15. So much for home schooling. And, Catholicism being the leading political party in such places as France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, October 15 it was — for them.
Within the next couple of years, a few other nearby countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland adopted the Gregorian calendar because, well, it appeared to work pretty well and besides they were pretty much all Catholics, too.
Not so in the rest of Europe, where it took another century to put in place. The Protestant German countries adopted it in 1700, England and its American colonies in 1752.
The latter happened just in time for a calendrical course correction that made September 2, 1752, immediately followed by September 14. Rioting ensued but nowadays people don’t feel all that strongly about the calendar as long as they get enough three-day holiday weekends by having such things as presidential birthdays shifted around willy-nilly.
Don’t get me started on November.
(Posted 10/01/07)
William M. Dowd is a Capital Region writer and photographer. He’ll help you keep up with information on food, drink and destinations at Taste for Travel and Dowd On Drinks.