“Word Nerd Wednesday” is a weekly series that uses language to help us think differently and solve old problems in new ways.
This morning I woke up and wondered…why is the 10th month of the year called October when “octo” means 8?
Apparently it’s a holdover from the early Roman calendar which only had 10 months. That calendar was 304 days, starting with March and ending with the then-appropriately named September (month 7), October (8), November (9), and December (10).
What about the 60-ish days we now call January and February? They were…nothing…an unnamed abyss when everything (aka the Roman government and military) shut down. (Reference: https://lnkd.in/dfQUg4Q) As a New Englander used to cold, snowy winters that seems perfectly reasonable!
But, alas, 1st century Romans decided to group that period into two more named months, knocking our nomenclature out of whack. It could have been worse. July and August were originally Quintilis (5) and Sextilis (6) until they were renamed for Roman emperors Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus.
I’m astounded that it took me 40+ (Gregorian) years to wonder about this.
(This has nothing to do with customerexperience or employee experience, but since yesterday was all CX all day I figured it’s okay to digress to another subject just this once!)
