People have been tinkering with calendars since the world began. Earliest versions were generally based on moon cycles since these were the most obvious and the easiest to deal with for tribespeople without settled cities and fixed temple observations points and temple scribes/mathematicians.
Changes in the moon were conveniently obvious from day to day, while the changes in sun position were hardly noticeable from week to week. The monthly moon cycle (or month) thus became the first calendar out of convenience. But it was soon observed that moon cycles became out-of-phase with the seasons after a few years, and people who counted by the moon had trouble getting their crops into the ground at the beginning of the growing season. It took a bit longer, as the more technologically advanced societies shifted to the solar calendar permitting full moons and new moons to drift more or less meaninglessly through the solar "months", to see that the seasons continued to drift -- if much more gradually. The Romans, who succeeded in developing a reasonably accurate solar calendar, introduced a "leap day" every fifth year to make up for the quarter of a day plus something that the solar calendar was off.
The three hundred and sixty-five day calendar of the solar circle have had a profound effect on the development of mathematics as the mathematicians of successive civilizations have struggled with the problem of reconciling an uneven number of days (plus residuum) with any division of the sum into weekdays. The Greeks, unable to deal with the not-evenly-divisible 365 plus days in the earth's circular motion around the sun, divided the circle into a more manipulable 360 degrees, and the evolution of mathematics has proceeded on this basis ever since.
Driven by mystic religious considerations for which we have little understanding today, the Hindus and Mayas came up with calendrical cycles, in some ways more accurate than ours, which range over tens of thousands of years. But few of us moderns, without Mayan religious hangups, would have much use for a calendar consisting of Baktuns of 3,407 years, however accurate the calculation in solar days.
The Gregorian calendar, adopted in 1502, which resulted after ages of trial and error, and a couple of major revisions over the centuries, refined the Roman leap year to skip leap year every centenary year not divisible by 400 -- an event which will occur in the year 2000. But the Gregorian calendar is still a bit more chaotic than need be.
Within our own cultural understanding and reach, the French rationalists, following the Revolution of 1789, tried to do something about the imperfections of the Gregorian calendar, shifting to a decimal calendar and changing the names of the months from what they'd inherited from the Romans (with months to commemorate the two Great Caesars, Julius and Augustus, interposed between June (named after the goddess Juno) and September ("seventh month") -- which made nonsense of the names of the last four months of the year. The French reformers attacked the problem by introducing rational new names for the months starting with mid-September to mid-October: vendemiare (vintage), brumaire (mist), frimaire (frost), nivose (snow), pluviose (rain), ventose (wind), germinal (seedtime), floreal ( blossom time), prairial (meadow), messidor (harvest time), thermidor (heat), and fructidor (fruits). Neither the more logical decimal week nor the rational function-related month names survived the early enthusiasms of the French Revolution. To be sure, much in human life and language is irrational -- at least in superficial appearance. Lots of what we do and value, and much of what we say, is based on tradition, custom, inheritance, and the unwisdom of the past. But as some of our most thoughtful linguists have told us, in much of the illogic of language resides the deeper wisdom of the race (see present author's paper On Language and Learning ).
Whatever one might think about trying to rationalize the calendar as we approach a new century, a new millennium, and new era of world history -- the end of the Cold War, true multi-lateralization of international relations, workable economic systems, and the end of some of the most detrimentally overt forms of imperialism and racism, we should not make the mistake of the French rationalists by trying to force everything in the new calendar into a totally logical structure.
But there are a few simple things which could be done without upsetting the masses or destroying all history and tradition.
First of all, each of the twelve months should be of equal length -- either 30 or 31 days long (or, perhaps 36 -- read on). None of this "except February, which stands alone" stuff. And why not put the 31 day months (or acalendrical bonus holidays, read on) in places where they'll be most useful? Let's leave December and January with 31 days each ,since these are both holiday months and can use the extra work days to make up for Christmas and New Year's Day. February, March, April, and May can get by with 30 days each. June, July, and August -- vacation and holiday months -- could each use 31 days. September, October, and November can do with 30 days each. Every four years "leap day" could be added following December 31 so we'd have a full ten days between Christmas Eve and the end of New Year's Day. This wouldn't be quite the Twelve Days of Christmas of Medieval tradition, but every four years it would remind us of the gentling Christian tradition which brought us from the Dark Ages to post-Cold War enlightenment. Maybe someone could even rework "The Twelve Days of Christmas" into the "Ten Days of Christmas", which could become the International Leap Year Christmas (or All Faith's) Anthem. Alternatively, we could adopt ten 36 day months, with five weeks per month, plus a day -- in effect, a return to the original ten month Roman year attributed to Romulus, ca . 800 B.C. Ideally, it would be nice to have metrically based forty day months so the same day of the month would fall of the same day of each week; but here we confront one of the unavoidable irrationalities of trying to deal with a 365 day (plus) solar year. A ten month year would permit retention of the familiar seven day week, the Friday (or Saturday, or Sunday) weekly holidays to which most of the world has become accustomed, while the thirty-sixth day each month would preserve the customary rotation forward by one day each year of birthdays and days of the week.
The five residual days, rather than being bunched at year end in a restoration of the "Ten Days of Christmas", could, as an alternative solution, rid the calendar of many lesser holidays which have crept into the usage of many nations, impairing production efficiency, being used as quarterly extra-calendrical, or acalendrical holidays, plus a bonus holiday at the end of the year. N.B. The additional four to six days of production gained would give a one per cent plus boost to world GNP -- amounting to an extra doubling of the standard of living every seventy years.
If it were decided that the extra-calendrical holidays were to be introduced more or less quarterly, the first of these might be introduced two and a half months into the New Year, i.e. between numbered day eighteen and numbered day nineteen (more or less March 19 of the present calendar), being designated Spring Festival Day , it could satisfy the traditions of a near billion Muslims celebrating Id El Fitr, and over a billion Christians celebrating Easter. Of course if individual religions or nationality groups insist on celebrating their festivals according to the ancient lunar calendar, they would continue to do so, the world business community being no worse off than at present. The second intra-monthly festival might come at the end of the fifth month, i.e. day 180 of the year (about July 1), being designated National Day and replacing the Queen's Birthday, Bastille Day, American Independence Day, etc., etc. If considered desirable, the calendar year might even be shifted by a few days to make this holiday coincide with spring solstice, providing an additional degree of symmetry. The third intra-calendrical holiday might be located mid-eighth month, following numbered day 270 (about October 1), being designated Fall Festival or Thanksgiving Day . The fourth acalendrical holiday could conveniently be located at the end of the year, designated as Religion (or Philosophy , or Labor ) Day. If Religion Day (or Christmas ), immediately followed by New Years Day, were arbitrarily scheduled to precede, and New Years Day to follow the Saturday and Sunday nearest year end (as American holidays are now customarily deliberately shifted by a day or two to coincide with weekends) we'd have a four day celebration to end the Old Year and welcome the New, even if the idea for a ten day Christmas were rejected. And if Spring Festival Day `were adjusted to coincide with the spring solstice, Religion Day would coincide with the Winter solstice, adding another degree of harmony to the new calendar. Every fourth year a sixth "leap day" would be introduced to compensate for the extra quarter day of the solar cycle.
To avoid the illogic of the total logic of the French Revolution, we should retain as many traditional month names as reasonable. Clearly, among the changes to be made, September, October, November, and December should once more become the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months of the year. I'd vote for keeping January (after Januarius, the Roman god of beginnings and endings) for the name of the first month. If we're to retain July and August, celebrating two of the most memorable historical figures of Antiquity, why not at least put them up front where they belong historically -- perhaps right after Januarius, who was also Roman.
So we'd now have January, July, August, plus room for three more historical figures of comparable stature to the Caesars; then seventh month, eighth month, ninth month, tenth month (plus room for eleventh and twelfth months if we opt for retaining a twelve month calendar), with two more recent historical names to round out the names of the months. If someone wants to argue for fitting in February, March, April, May, or June for any of these months, I have no objection. But in these days of internationalism and ecumenism, we might think of renaming them after Mohammed, Jesus, Krishna, Martin Luther King, or Joseph Smith -- or perhaps such noted scientists as Thales, Euclid, Descartes, Newton, Faraday, Kelvin, or Einstein, rather than the totally unremembered minor Roman gods whose names these months now bear.
My personal vote would be to name the fourth month (following August) Carlomagnus, certainly as notable as any of his predecessors as Emperor of the Romans, and national hero in France, Spain, and Germany; the fifth Arturus after the hero of British and Breton legend. Maybe some months could be named after noted explorer/scientists: Galileo? Kepler? Pasteur? This would gratify French, German, and English speakers to see the names of national heroes enshrined in the modern calendar (the Italians are, of course, already represented by two ancient Romans and the Germans with the common English names for four weekdays). The Chinese, the remaining large language group of the world, already attribute their own distinctive names for all the days and months of the oriental calendar, which otherwise parallels that of Europe.
There we have it. Just a bit of tidying up without too many radical changes. Still twelve months (or maybe ten), but now evened out to either 30 or 31 days duration (or perhaps 36). Longer months (or extra-calendrical bonus holidays) placed where they'll do most good. Fully half the month's names preserved, out of a sense of history and tradition. And with unremembered archaic gods replaced by new Juliuses or Augustuses or their more recent historic or scientific equivalents. . All the Gregorian rules for leap years and years divisible by 400 to maintain the new calendar in equilibrium with the precession of the equinoxes would continue as at present.
A good way to start a new century, a new millennium, and a new era of history.
AmEmbassy - Bucharest
APO AE 09213-1315
June 12, 1995
Editor
The Atlantic Monthly
745 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116
Sir:
The Atlantic has carried a number of articles in recent editions which I have found of high interest, have sent on to my Senator and have circulated to family members, among them the Peter Drucker article on the growing importance of the Non-Profit Sector of the Economy and peoples' turning away from traditional forms of government; and the one by John Stadden on Responsibility and Punishment, regarding J. B. Skinner's work on aversive and affirmative conditioning.
I submit herewith some thoughts on further rationalizing the existing calendar, which, with both a new century and a new millenium just around the corner, I consider timely and of possible interest to Atlantic readership.
Sincerely,
D. B. Timmins, PhD (Harvard)
Professor of Finance & Economics (ret.)
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