The Thirteenth Month

Introduction

This is a Seven Days In Post from December 2020 (pre Vocal for me) about the use of Imperial Measures and why we have ended up with twelve months in our year, which don't really fit and we have to adjust once every four years to make sure our timekeeping stays on track.

I generated an image for this story using Nightcafe. It makes no sense but I still think it looks great.

The Thirteenth Month

I have often wondered why we have twelve months when we say four weeks is a month. If that were so we'd be starting our thirteenth month tomorrow and would probably called Undecember (Latin for eleven is Undecim). Here is an explanation:

Apparently the Romans started with ten months but then tried to match it to the (just over) 12 lunar cycles in a year so a 13-month year would be out of sync with the lunar cycles.

The thing reminds me of imperial weights and money systems (12 pennies to a shilling, 5 shillings to a crown, then there are half crowns, twenty shillings in a pound and twenty-one shillings in a guinea. Then sixteen ounces to a pound, fourteen pounds to a stone etc, and then you have twelve inches to a foot, three feet to a yard, six feet to a fathom etc.

Then you have tennis scoring which is weird as hell and the Duckworth-Lewis method in cricket for curtailed matches and all the weird scoring possibilities with light stopping play and more.

Metric is a far more sensible measurement system, although people still have problems with our switch to decimalisation fifty years back. my dad still talks in old money, and on measurements, I once fitted a kitchen and the wooden tops had a metric width and imperial length.

I weigh myself in kilograms, but hight I still say just under six feet rather than 1.9 metres. When driving I still use miles per hour and see distances in miles rather than kilometres, and when getting food I get things in kilogrammes but my milk is still in pints.

So this is my first post of the month and think I'm going to go with "The Killing Moon" by Echo & The Bunnymen because of the lunar cycles that prompted this post in the first place.

Conclusion

Humans want conformity, but ironically if we all conform, then it is unlikely that we can progress.

This Frank Zappa statement encapsulates it, though probably someone said it before him.

One of my problems is that I want others to follow the rules but then I want to be able to do what I want. If I drive, I drive on the correct side of the road, if I buy something I give the correct amount of money in exchange so I am aware that in some situations conformity is not optional.

Think about how we submit our work to Vocal and how that has changed since you have been on the platform. Sometimes Vocal changes the system, often to improve it, and sometimes they take ideas from Creators, but we have to conform to how the platform works or our work does not get published.

I know this has drifted from the original post, but while most people say they embrace improvement sometimes they will not countenance change.

Sometimes change is essential to progress.

I must thank you for staying with me through these ramblings, and, as usual, I hope I have given you something to think about.

If the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train then it's advisable to step back forom the track.