human beings are not racehorses

[calimac]

Racehorses, I am given to understand, are all born on January 1st. That is, in this year 2006 a "two-year-old" is defined as a horse born any time during 2004.

Before you say how old a human being is, though, it's advisable to check a couple dates.

This just came up in the course of final copy-editing on the book, as I've just had to settle an argument over how old Christopher Tolkien was when he was invited to join the Inklings, 20 or 21. Well, this was October 1945. CT was born in November 1924. Therefore, 20.

I expect I'm going to get misbegotten gotchas on the article I'm now writing for Shostakovich's birth centenary, which is coming up later this month. Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) died at the age of 68. Is that wrong? No, he was born in September (as a moment's thought would reveal that I already said) and died in August.

Why did it take me decades to notice a mistake of this kind in the musical 1776? John Adams sings, "I'm only forty-one / I still have my virility." This is 1776 and Adams was born in 1735, so that sounds right. But wait: it's June (or thereabouts) 1776 and, as every presidential trivia buff should know, Adams was born in October. Tsk, tsk.

Comments

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

When Shostakovich died, the Oakland Tribune carried a banner headline giving his age at death as 69. Yes, I remember this clearly.

[mithriltabby]

I think an algorithm similar to the racehorse one was used in China at one time.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Thank you; that enabled me to revise a sentence of the article. "His death in 1975 at the age of 68 was widely mourned, and made newspaper headlines even in the U.S."