During the French revolution, they changed the calendar to be "more scientific". Worked about as well as can be imagined.
Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
911–920 of 1001 posts
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#912Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shabbat (apart from meaning "rest") is also generally accepted as deriving from the Hebrew word for "seven", which is "sheva". And Shabbat is sometimes referred to in Hebrew as "yom shvi-i" ("seventh day").
Citation needed. Klein Dictionary gives the etymology of שַׁבָּת as derived from שׁבת (to rest). I also found references suggesting the origin is with the Akkadian šapattum, the 15th of the month, but none related to שׁבע (which originates in Proto-Canaanite). היּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי (note the definite form!) is how Saturday is referred to in Genesis 2:2-3, without actually having the name שַׁבָּת. There's a some discuss…
Trying to read this on Android (in Materialistic) was fascinating, each line containing a Hebrew (?) word caused some of the words around it to switch places, but the words themselves are fine??
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#913Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you suggest a source that is more consistently correct?
Wikipedia should never be considered a "source", even per its own documentation. If you must, to support an assertion found in Wikipedia, follow the article's citations and use them. If they even do support the assertion. Quite often, they do not.
Source can have a broader meaning than just “primary source.”
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#914I once read a story in which a human gave an extraterrestrial visitor a calendar to examine and they were confused as to all the inconsistency. I then wondered how they would react if we gave them a Malaysian wall calendar instead:
- Four calendars (Gregorian, Islamic, Chinese, Hindu)
- Three scripts (Latin, Chinese, Tamil)
- Two solar (Gregorian, Hindu), neither synced with the other, with varying month lengths (29-32 for the Hindu, but at least months follow solar longitudes properly; Gregorian doesn't really follow anything)
- Two lunar (Chinese, Islamic), also offsync (Chinese starts months on new moon, Islamic on first visible crescent) and Chinese has leap months while Islamic doesn't.
- Weekday names in four languages (English, Malay, Chinese, Tamil)
It'd certainly be a puzzle for our hypothetical alien.
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#915Earlier quoted context omitted.
For what it's worth many early European cultures also considered the start of the year to be at the start of spring, generally the same idea as Nowruz, which is where we got Easter from as a conglomeration of "pagan" rituals and Christian religion. Unfortunately we ended up with this weird Dec. 31st at the end of a year in the middle of winter which doesn't make any logical sense.
There’s more similarities than just that. Iran was founded by Indo-Europeans.
Many similarities in languages too. Persian (Farsi) has the same root as some European languages (and should not be confused with Arabic, which is totally different than both).
In Persian | In English
mädar | mother
barädar | brother
dokhtar | daughter
pedar | father
bad | bad
...Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#916This is absolutely hilarious, and despite being long form, fits Twitter format very well, with each chunk funnier than the last :) A few notes: - Per my knowledge US is the only country which stubbornly (and illogically) considers Sunday to be the first day of the week; - US (and maybe one or two English-speaking countries) are the only ones using 12h time, the rest of the world uses 24hrs, however 12h _sometimes_ is…
> Per my knowledge US is the only country which stubbornly (and illogically) considers Sunday to be the first day of the week /Officially/ almost everyone has standardized on ISO 8601 where Monday = 1 and Sunday = 7. But unofficially, not really. The week is still popularly understood to start on Sunday in English Canada, and probably some other parts of the English-speaking world. A quick check of Wikipedia suggests…
Japanese calendars start the week with Sunday as well.
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#917I find the implication that aliens are rational and have no subrational concepts due to tradition and habit interesting, as it sort of implies that these kinds of outgrowths are not necessary and can just be done away with. The narrator starts from a position of not wanting to legitimize or historicize beyond reductive statements like "some ancient civilization did XYZ". I'll admit that I skimmed through the last par…
> subrational concepts More like vestigial organs that our society isn't capable enough to excise.
I don’t think it’s a question of whether or not society is capable. If we had to, we’d find a way to switch calendaring systems.
It’s more about pragmatism and priority. The world is filled with big problems that require global collaboration.
Collaboration on such a scale is hard. That we don’t spend time revamping a working system while other systems crumble and burn is arguably a good thing. It means we’re still at least aware of what matters.
There is nothing vestigial about time tracking. You can argue that the names of things are no longer useful, but at that point it’s time to throw out much of our language.
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#918Alien: So what is your first month?
Human: January
A: And why is it called that?
H: It's named for the god Janus.
A: Ah yes, many civilizations name their time divisions after deities, what is he the god of?
H: I don't know, we don't worship him anymore.
A: Ahh so you guys have moved past your need for religion
H: No, no, we still worship gods, just different ones.
A: Okay then, how about February, what god is that month named for?
H: Actually February is named for the festival of februalia.
A: Oh can you tell me a little more about this festival?
H: No, we don't celebrate it.
A: Are there any months that aren't named for gods you don't worship or festivals you don't celebrate?
H: There's July, named for Julius Caesar, a ruler.
A: Oh he must have been one of your best rulers to get a month named after him, what is he so notable for?
H: We stabbed him.
A: ...
H: A lot.
A: ...was he stabbed in July?
H: No, we stabbed him in March.
A: Okay are there any months not named for gods you don't worship, festivals you don't celebrate, or rulers you don't like?
H: Well October just means eight.
A: Finally, something that makes sense! Okay so your eighth month is just eight-
H: Tenth.
A: What?
H: October is our tenth month.
A: Why wouldn't you name your eighth month October?
H: We named that one after a guy.
A: What was his name?
H: Octavian, which coincidentally translates to eighth.
A: Don't tell me you have both an October and an Octover...
H: Don't be silly, no we named it August.
A: I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and guess August doesn't mean eight, does it?
H: Nah it means first.
A: Yeah, we're not letting you into our galactic federation.
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#919The alien's report: "this planet is inhabited by humans, a species whose brain is not mathematical, instead, has a special appreciation for myths, stories etc."
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#920Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would that be considered the first day of Fall? Even taking a purely astronomical perspective, the autumnal equinox would be the center of Fall, not the beginning.
Spring and autumn start on the equinox, summer and winter on the solstices. Though it's true they tend to be called "mid summer" and "mid winter" day. It's certainly weird. We also tend to associate summer with days getting longer and winter with days (the period between sunrise and sunset) getting shorter, but the opposite is true: in summer, which is the period from about 21 June to 23 September, days are getting s…
Technically days get longer (hours of daylight) during the winter and shorter during the summer.