Yo, Caesar!

[themeletor]

How nerd is it that my friends and I have been greeting eachother with "Happy Ides of March!"

Ju and Rose decided to wear black for the occasion, and I had planned to, but somehow when I woke up today my morning-brain was convinced that I simply had to wear red. For the Ides of March. Because... I don't know.

The same morning-brain thought that "red" meant what I now realize is my pink pinstripe buttonup.

I...should be getting more sleep.

(p.s. british_pickle, my laptop has been seized, and due to that and Yahoo being a b* you'll get your logs -- and my attentions -- on the morrow. If you could let gambling_pirate with-the-ineffective-journal in on this, I'd love you more than I already do. Her e-mail's untrustworthy, yarr.)

Comments

[tiggothy.livejournal.com]

*giggle* I remember we used to have some teachers who insisted we write down "The Ides of March" as the date, rather than the actual date, back when I were at school...

...Although you've now made me worry about my new job - which I started today. Meep! Think I shall have to use my new icon to cheer me up...

pink / red, hey just tell them it faded :-p

[elessil.livejournal.com]

Tu quoque, mea filia?

pssst...you still owe me porn! *whines*

[meletor-et-al.livejournal.com]

wtf? I wrote you porn! I wrote you the "creative lubrication" drabble! ...I owe you another one?

oooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Yes. Tomorrow, when I get the Incorrigible back, I'll e-mail the trimmed .doc file *nod*

[elessil.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was the porn I was refering to. *grins and bounces*

[(Anonymous)]

~Em

Primer on the Roman dating system (not that kind of dating o.O)

The days are measured as a distance from an important date in the month, i.e. the kalends, the nones (pronounced with a long O) and, of course, the ides.

The kalends always falls on the 1st of the month. The ides fall on either the 13th or the 15th, depending on the month. The old rhyme they teach us to remember it is "In March, July, October, and May the ides are on the fifteenth day." The nones falls on the 5th when the idess fall on the 13th, and on the 7th when the ides falls on the 15.

gtg, I'll continue this lesson in another post when I have time.

[(Anonymous)]

~Em

Ok, I'm back. Now time for lesson two, where it gets more confusing.

The Romans did what is called inclusive counting, which basically means they included the number they started on when counting. For instance, March 8th would considered eight days before the ides, not seven, because they would count it 8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15.

To notate how many days there is before the "big dates" in the month, you would use the words ante dies, or more commonly, the abbreviation a.d. You would use this except for the day before, which would be called the pridie, meaning "day before". Also, kalends, nones, and ides have abbreviations; kal., non., and id., respectively.

To use my first example of March 8th, that would be notated by the Romans as:

a.d. VIII ides Mar.

...yes, I abbreviated March too. And the Romans would, of course, have used Roman numerals.

Now it's your turn to guess some dates I'll give. The first one to get them right gets a prize yet to be determined.

a.d. XII kal. Nov.
pridie non. Jun.
a.d. III id. Sept.
a.d. VI non. Oct.

There! Wasn't that fun?... .::inevitably finds out the whole ordeal alienates everyone because they find out what a Latin nerd The Em is::.

[tiggothy.livejournal.com]

21st October
4th June
11th September
2nd October

??

Why didn't they ever realise that it's easier just to count upwards?

Of course, I am assuming that we've got as far as the Gregorian calendar & having 12 months & that for working out the above ;-)

PS Being a geek is fun!

[(Anonymous)]

~Em

You win!

...as I said, I haven't determined a prize. We'll talk.

[meletor-et-al.livejournal.com]

She'll have her people call your people.
You'll do lunch.

[meletor-et-al.livejournal.com]

Em you are a dorkus and I love you.