debunkers are us

[calimac]

Here's a crisp debunking of the notion that "Black Friday" originally had anything to do with "going into the black" financially. Instead, it's an old Philadelphia term referring to the hellish day, dreaded by retail workers and cops alike, when crowds swarmed the stores in between Thanksgiving and the Saturday Army-Navy football game.

Excellent. Now that we're done with that one, can we disabuse ourselves of the equally ridiculous notions that "Blue Moon" means "second full moon in a calendar month" or that centuries can only begin in years ending in "01"?

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

The last strikes me as turning on an equivocation. A century is 100 years, and any 100 years can be a century; for example, 1815-1915 makes a plausible historical unit of 100 years, more so than 1801-1901. But "the twentieth century" means "the twentieth hundred-year interval in a series of hundred-year intervals with neither gaps nor overlaps that make up the Common Era." And the first day of the Common Era was January 1, 1 C.E. The day before that was December 31, 1 B.C.E.

It's a convention, but it's a convention that makes numerical sense; it doesn't require introducing a fictitious Year Zero, or having a ninety-nine year "century," or skipping over some number of years somewhere along the way. So it's a convention I find reasonable.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

the first day of the Common Era was January 1, 1 C.E.

That is not true. It was a retcon, invented hundreds of years later. That in itself doesn't change the numbering, but it does point out how artificial and arbitrary the whole thing is. There could be a Year Zero (or two) if we wanted one; we could insert it right now if there were general agreement, and it would in no sense be any more artificial or false to history if we did so.

In fact we have. The astronomical calendar does include a year zero, and if I say the twentieth century ended with 1999, I'm just using that, so there.

The insanity of the artificial fixing on "January 1, 1 C.E." becomes even clearer if one considers that, due to the leap year provisions of the Gregorian calendar, and the switch to Gregorian from Julian, the century turn anniversaries are slightly off base, anyway, plus the overall crashing fact that the starting point was intended to fix on a historical event that they got the date wrong for.

But you can't get off by saying that any hundred years makes a century, though indeed it can. The "01" fixatives are just as upset at anyone who says "the century" or "the millennium" that isn't the one they chose, even if they don't specify "the twentieth century." You're the only person I've encountered making your argument who is prepared to admit that "the hundred years with a 9 as the third digit" may be legitimately called a century at all.

(And it's 99% congruent with the so-called "twentieth century", so the heck with it.)

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Well, fine. I was expecting you to respond to my position and my arguments for it, not to debate with other people who have partially reached the same conclusions that I did by a different route.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I did respond to your position and your arguments. I brought up others to note your difference from them and to cover the other bases as well.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia (i know, what a fine authority...) "blue moon" refers to "the third full moon in a season with four full moons." This is apparently the definition used by the Farmer's Almanac. The "second in a month" interpretation apparently comes from an article in Sky & Telescope, in March of 1946.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Fiscal centuries?