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You know how sometimes you look at a word and it just looks weird? Like a bunch of letters put together without rhyme or reason? Well, that's what I was thinking about October and I got to wondering what the name of the month actually meant because if the prefix "oct" normally means eight, how on earth did the tenth month of the year end up being something that had to do with eight?
Curiosity being the better part of valor, I decided to Google the origin of the names of the months and was somewhat surprised to find out that October really does come from the Latin octo "eight" + -ber (adj. suffix) which put together is the Latin october mensis or "eighth month". Okay ... but this is the tenth month of the year so how is it that our tenth month was originally the eighth month? What happened between the time the months were originally named and now? Further research uncovered that the original Roman calendar year had eight months and probably two unnamed months in the dead of winter when not much happened in agriculture. The year began in March (called Martius) until Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome circa 700 BC, added the two months Januarius "January" and Februarius "February".
Pompilius also moved the beginning of the year from Marius to Januarius and changed the number of days in several months to make them into an odd number which was considered to be lucky. After Februarius there was occasionally an additional month of Intercalaris, "intercalendar", which had 27 days and is the origin of the leap-year day being in February.
In 46 BC, Julius Caesar decided he wanted to reform the Roman calendar (hence the Julian calendar) and he again changed the number of days in many months while removing Intercalaris completely. In the process he also renamed July, which had been known as Quintilis, the "fifth month", to Julius in order to honor himself. When Augustus Caesar clarified and completed the calendar reform started by Julius Caesar, he renamed the month of August after himself - Augustus; previously it had been known as Sextilis or the "sixth month".

How was your day??
I HAVE A HALLOWEEN TREAT FOR YOU --in My Thursday Thirteen. [scroll down]
ReplyDeleteI remember nothing you said in this post. Nothing at all.
ReplyDeleteBut I loved the calendar.
Ahem....
You should do these posts more often. I'd be here 3x a day.
I like August even though it is VERY HOT!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed hearing about how the months got their names. Thank you for sharing that Linda. Also I loved the Mo Show tonight. It was awesome. Thanks for sharing your stories.
ReplyDeleteUh, yeah...October IS a nice time of year.
ReplyDeleteYou said something about men, bodies and nipples right?
ReplyDeleteStill to be covered why is George Washington's birthday given as the 22nd of February when he was born earlier and what happened to those missing days?
My day was fine...thanks to a little calendar history information AND a very nice photo to go along with the educational aspect of your blog. Hmmmm...
ReplyDeleteInteresting post, Linda. I vaguely remember learning about the Roman Calender before, but thanks for reminding me. I could've done w/o the pics of half-naked "bucketheads", but I suppose even you women like "eye candy" once in awhile. By the way, who's Kevin?
ReplyDeleteThat's intersting Linda. Love the pictures!
ReplyDeleteMMMMMmmmmmMMMMMM! Sextilis...
ReplyDeleteThe pics were a tad distracting, but I loved the post.
ReplyDeleteGuess what I have boys 13 months & 13 days apart in age (currently 15 & 14) they hate being called twins. Will be visiting more often...hope you'll come visit me:
http://cafeendofuniverse.blogspot.com/
That's a lot of info we were unaware of.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the female firefighters calendar?
ReplyDeleteYummy. Just plain yummy. :)
ReplyDelete