Ten Missing Days

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A year is 365 days long, right? Well, not exactly. Sometimes, like this year, the year is 366 days long. This happens every four years, on years divisible by 4. You already knew that, right?

Did you know that some years which are divisible by 4 are NOT leap years?

A little history will explain:




In 46 BC, Julius Caesar created what's known as the Julian calendar. It had 365 days per year, except every four years there was an extra day added in February. Just like today, right? Almost.

Though this gives an average year-length of 365.25 days, the year is actually a little bit shorter, about 11 minutes shorter. This adds up to three fewer days every 400 years, which means that in a 400 year span, there needs to be only 97 leap days, not 100 as the Julian calendar prescribes.

By 1582 AD, the calendar had drifted 10 whole days away from its proper date, which was screwing up the proper day on which to celebrate Easter, not to mention the seasons showing up at the wrong time. So Pope Gregory the 13th created something called called a papal bull, which is basically a decree for the whole world.

Of course, back then, as now, something less than the whole world paid attention to the Pope's decrees, but the Catholic world did pay attention, so that Thursday, October 4th was followed by Friday, October 15th. Ten days had to be skipped in order to get the calendar back on track, but at the time, only a handful of countries observed the change.

Over the years, more countries adopted the change until finally, the last Christian countries to do so, Russia and Greece, did so in the early 20th century and had to skip 13 days. (The October Revolution occurs in November because at the time, Russia was still on the Julian calendar.)

This new calendar, dubbed the Gregorian calendar, follows a slightly different rule than the Julian calendar. Every four years a leap day is added, UNLESS the year is divisible by 100... UNLESS the year is divisible by 400. So 1900 would normally have been a leap year, but it actually wasn't. However, the year 2000 WAS a leap year because it's divisible by 400. When we get to 2100, it will NOT be a leap year, nor will be 2200 or 2300, but 2400 will be.

Neat, huh?

If you plan on living that long, you'll see for yourself.

Here's some fascinating history of the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar.

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Pissed Off, then Pissed On

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The other day, someone posted, "I'd rather be pissed off then pissed on."

Someone else pointed out, "This is one of those times when the difference between THEN and THAN is rather important." I hope I don't have to explain it.

Earlier today, I received an invite to a party which was being held to raise money for someone's funeral expenses. The organizer said, "Donations will be excepted."

My reply was, "This is one of those times when the difference between EXCEPTED and ACCEPTED is rather important." Unless, of course, they really did NOT want donations?



In both cases, the person doing the correcting was lambasted as if they had committed an atrocity. But you know what? It's not MY job to have to work to understand you, it's YOUR job to work to be understood.

Think I'm wrong?

How about trying to illegally cross a border into a country whose language you don't speak. You think Zimbabwe soldiers won't shoot you if they can't understand you? You think Mexican cops won't arrest you and put you in a hole if they can't understand you? America is the only place where people seem to think they have to do all the work to understand other people around them. You see it not just in the dearth of foreigners who can't speak English, many of them here illegally, but also in the kids who can't be bothered to use the right word.

Literally.

No one here would THINK of going to France and expecting the whole French populace to speak English just for them. So why do we have the attitude that here in America, we the communicator can be so lazy that if someone doesn't understand us, it's their problem?

I, and EVERY author, have spent a great deal of time, trying to pick just the right words for our books to convey exactly the right thing at the right pace to make a gripping story. Those who do a good job of it sell well, those who do a poor job of it sell poorly. Well, not counting the marketing machine, but then again, there too is an example of the better writer doing a better job of connecting to what the people want. Crafting ads is an art, you know.

And do you know what it says about you when you can't even take a second to be sure you're not embarrassing yourself with the wrong word? If I have to work to understand you, it says that what you have to say isn't that important. Worse, it says that you don't consider ME important enough to try to communicate. It says you think I'm your slave. Is that really the message you want to give other people? Don't we have enough prospective slave-owners out there?

For those of you who can't tell the difference between there, they're, and their, PLEASE do not try to get a job creating DANGER signs! I don't want to see "brake glass four emergency" any time soon.

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