English is a Pig of a Language! (Warning: Long Post)
I spotted this originally posted by a friend on Facebook (thanks, John!).
Called The Chaos, it is by Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870-1946) and was originally published by The English Spelling Society in 1992-3. What follows is this definitive published version.
As John says, if you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, one Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.
See how you get on …
The Chaos
by Gerard Nolst Trenité
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.
Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it’s written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say — said, pay — paid, laid but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.
From “desire”: desirable — admirable from “admire”,
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,
Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation’s OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Is your R correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes with Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.
Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?
Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.
Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You’ll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.
Would you like some more? You’ll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice,
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,
Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with “shirk it” and “beyond it”,
But it is not hard to tell
Why it’s pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the A of drachm and hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.
“Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker”,
Quoth he, “than liqueur or liquor”,
Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.
Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.
Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.
And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,
Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn’t) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
Don’t be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.
Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)
Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don’t mention,
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;
Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.
No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don’t want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet Froude compared with proud
Is no better than McLeod.
But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.
Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
But you’re not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.
Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
When for Portsmouth I had booked!
Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.
Please don’t monkey with the geyser,
Don’t peel ‘taters with my razor,
Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.
Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan.
The TH will surely trouble you
More than R, CH or W.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.
Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more
but I forget ’em —
Wait! I’ve got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.
The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight — you see it;
With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,
Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry, fury, bury,
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use?
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite
Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.
Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
Bona fide, alibi
Gyrate, dowry and awry.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Rally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess — it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.
Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.
Mind the O of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
With the sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.
Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.
A of valour, vapid, vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist,
Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.
Pronunciation — think of Psyche! —
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won’t it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying ‘grits’?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Don’t you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??
Hiccough has the sound of sup …
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!
So how many of you even got to the end? 🙂
Sex and Robots
A week or so before Christmas Kyle Munkittrick wrote what I consider to be an important post over on Discover Magazine blogs under the title The Future: Where Sexual Orientations Get Kind of Confusing.
It is important because it looks to the future and asks what sexual orientations should be acceptable and when.
The situation at present if reasonably clear. Heterosexual and homosexual relationships are both accepted as sexual orientations and as being acceptable. So are polyamory, queer and transgender relationships. As long as all the parties are consenting.
But paedophilia and zoophilia, while arguable sexual orientations are not acceptable. The difference is that in the latter neither a minor nor an animal can give consent.
This seems to provide a simple rule: sexual orientations/relationships are acceptable as long as the parties all give informed consent. Where there is not consent, then they are verboten.
But, Munkittrick asks, what of the future? A future where it is conceivable that humans may wish to have sexual relations with cyborgs and robots? Should human-robot sexual orientations be acceptable, and under what circumstances? Can a robot or cyborg give informed consent? If so under what circumstances and how would we know?
Thinking about this is important, not just for the future but because it helps us understand our present moral position. [For instance, how and why does incest fit the model?]
It also begs the question of whether we should be worrying about our relationship with our dildo, vibrator or blow-up doll! 🙂
Go read the full article!
The Cat's Bed
This is a pretty good approximation to the state of affairs in our house!
Click the image for a larger version
Wassail!
Tonight is Twelfth Night. According to the OED Twelfth Night is the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany; this was formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking. This is predicated on the medieval custom of starting each new day at sunset, so that Twelfth Night precedes Twelfth Day Which would be Epiphany, 6 January).
Tradition has it that if you don’t take your Christmas decorations down by Twelfth Night they have to stay up all year or you bring bad luck upon yourself. Although there does seem to be a “lease break” at Candlemas (2 February).
In many parts of England, especially the southern cider-making counties, one of the Twelfth Night traditions is Wassailing the apple trees to ensure a good crop the following autumn. In fact the term Wassail, by association, has at least there uses: the celebration of the apple trees, the hot mulled punch which is drunk at such occasions, and as a toast. All derive from the Middle English wæs hæl, meaning literally “good health”. To quote Wikipedia:
In the cider-producing counties […] wassailing refers to a traditional ceremony that involves singing and drinking the health of trees in the hopes that they might better thrive. The purpose of wassailing is to awake the cider apple trees and to scare away evil spirits to ensure a good harvest of fruit in the Autumn. The ceremonies of each wassail vary from village to village but they generally all have the same core elements. A wassail King and Queen lead the song and/or a processional tune to be played/sung from one orchard to the next, the wassail Queen will then be lifted up into the boughs of the tree where she will place toast soaked in Wassail […] as a gift to the tree spirits […] an incantation is usually recited […]
The words of the incantation and any associated carol(s) vary, for instance there is:
Here’s to thee, old apple-tree,
Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats-full! Caps-full!
Bushel, bushel sacks-full!
And my pockets full, too! Hurra!
The one I prefer is the ancient Gloucetershire Wassail which begins
Wassail! wassail! all over the town,
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown;
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree;
With the wassailing bowl, we’ll drink to thee.
There’s also this Wassail carol, which is more often these days sung as a Christmas carol (which it never was!):
Here we come a wassailing among the leaves so green
Here we come a wandering so fair to be seen
Love and joy come to you and to your wassail too
And the Gods bless you and send you a happy New Year
And the Gods send you a happy New Year
We are not daily beggars that beg from door to door
We are your neighbour’s children whom you have seen before
The Gods bless the master of this house, likewise the mistress, too
And all the little children that round the table go.
Needless to say the details vary from place to place. The Wassail punch may be cider, beer, wine or mead based. As one is thanking and encouraging the apple trees my gut feel is that the punch should be either cider based or contain apple in some other form. I also recall that some traditions use cake rather then toast and some have bonfires. You can also indulge in making a lot of noise (like banging on tin buckets, blowing horns etc.) in order to drive away the evil spirits.
So if you want to go out tonight and wassail your apple tree(s) then as long as you stick to these rough principles, and don’t drink all the punch before the apple trees have their share, you don’t seem to be able to go far wrong. Just remember that if you want to dance round the tree as well, you’d better go deosil (clockwise) but as it is a few days away from full moon you will probably be excused doing so sky-clad — although there is nothing saying you can’t should you wish!
Wassail!
More on the Calendar
Following up on my post of a couple of days ago, I saw a further article in Wired about the proposed new Hanke-Henry Calendar.
What is interesting is that when I looked at this Wired article, they had a poll asking whether readers wanted to retain the existing Gregorian calendar or change to the HH version. To my surprise almost two-thirds for the almost 20,000 voting said they would prefer the new Hanke-Henry Calendar.
Hmmm … Maybe! I bet if we went there most of this support would vanish. Such, in my experience, is the way of people.
While I think the Hanke-Henry Calendar is interesting, and would probably support it, I continue to have two reservations.
Firstly, it starts the year (and therefore every week) on a Sunday which, as I mentioned before, is counter to the international standard on dates (ISO 8601) — but when did that ever matter to Americans? However this is really easily fixed by starting the year on a Monday, although that does mean the new calendar couldn’t be introduced until 2018 without moving the names of the days. I see no problem with a 2018 start date as that will give everyone time to adjust.
(Out of interest, using Henry & Hanke’s method Christmas Day would always be on a Sunday, whereas using my Monday method Christmas Day would always be on a Monday.)
Secondly, and more seriously, while Henry & Hanke do away with the annoyance of leap years and leap days, they have to introduce an alternative to ensure the calendar keeps roughly in line with solar time as the years pass. So they introduce the leap week — an extra week added at the end of the year every 5 or 6 years. That’s fine, but is it every five years, or every six? Actually it is some arcane combination; there is no good (read, easy for Joe Public) method for determining when to add the leap week.
According to the Wired article the leap week is “inserted into years starting or ending on a Gregorian-calendar Thursday” which “would almost perfectly account for Earth’s 365.2422 day-long orbit around the sun”. This is unutterable madness! Why base the leap weeks on the “old” calendar we’re replacing?
Currently there is a simple method for calculating what is a leap year. A method which Joe Public is capable of understanding. But the Hanke-Henry system would leave people with no clue as there is no simple pattern to what would be leap week years. How many people are going to keep track of the “old” calendar just to calculate leap week years? Answer: none! Within a few years people will have no clue when leap week years are (the calculation is arcane, to say the least), just as now almost no-one can calculate when Easter falls despite that it follows a simple rule.
But I reckon this too can be pretty well fixed with a simple algorithm. How about this? … In the new calendar every year is 364 days (52 seven day weeks), except when the year is divisible exactly by 5 when you add the leap week unless it is also a century or half-century year. So years 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020 and so on would be leap week years; but not 2000, 2050, 2100, 2150 etc. According to my calculation that runs about as close as this calendar can to true, being just a couple of days out after 500 years. That’s about as good as you’re going to get given that with a 7 day leap week system the variations from true solar time can be up to a week or so. This way people will know very easily what are leap week years and what aren’t. No need to perpetuate the calendar we’ve tried to replace.
(Actually after 500 years the calendar is maybe lagging solar time by slightly too much, on average, so you might want to add back the leap week in 2500. But that is maybe a refinement too far at this stage.)
Now who would like to sort out the moveable feat known as Easter? Shall we just adopt the Pagan feasts?
Gastronomy
“Should not the supreme aim of gastronomy be to untangle the confusion of ideas that confront mankind, and to provide this unfortunate biped with some guidance as to how he should conduct himself and his appetites? Buffeted continually by the studies of scientists, the inventions of dieticians, the fashions of restaurateurs and the disguised marketing campaigns of a thousand trade associations, his own tastes are often his last point of reference. The tyranny of political correctness, undermining him further, makes of him a man who avoids endangered species, factory farming, deforestation, genetic modification and inhumane slaughter. If he is unfortunate enough also to have a religion, then he will probably live the meanest of lives in the most tightly fitting of gastronomic straitjackets. By walking such a culinary tightrope, he believes that he will reap his rewards in long life, good health, moral superiority and in heaven hereafter. Yet all around him our unfortunate sees good vegetarians pushing up daisies, teetotallers’ hearts tightening and sugarphobes queueing in dentists’ waiting rooms. Reader, recognise that all your years of abstinence and your naive trust in low-fat yoghurt have not saved you from a pot belly, heavy jowls and an inadequate sex drive. A life of dieting has rendered your face pinched and furrowed from harsh judgement of your fellow diners and your evenings long and lonely.”
From “Boned Stuffed Poussins à la Marquis de Sade”, one of many excellent pastiches in Mark Crick, The Household Tips of the Great Writers. With thanks to Katyboo for the post-Christmas present!
A Word in Your Ear
Raree Show
1. A show contained or carried about in a box; a peep-show.
2. A show or spectacle of any kind.
3. Spectacular display.
According to the OED the word dates from 1681 and “is formed in imitation of the foreign way of pronouncing rare show” (Johnson). It has also been suggested that raree may represent rarity but Johnson’s statement is probably the correct one given that the early exhibitors of peep-shows appear to have been usually Savoyards, from whom the form was no doubt adopted. Recall that the diarist Samuel Pepys observed a marionette show featuring an early version of Punch & Judy (not quite a peep show but not unlikely they derive from the same tradition?) in London’s Covent Garden in May 1662. This was performed by an Italian puppet showman, Pietro Gimonde (aka. Signor Bologna).
Nanny State's Fatal Addiction
A few days ago the Heresy Corner blog wrote a piece exposing the worrying tendency of officialdom and do-gooders to slam down hard on things they don’t like (eg. smoking, alcohol) but with completely the wrong timing and emphasis. The writer shows that they did it with smoking and now they’re doing it with alcohol, and suggests that it is little more then self-defeating persecution. Consider the following extracts …
Alcohol consumption in the UK in fact peaked in 2004 and has been declining ever since. It’s now 11% lower than it was. There was an especially large fall in 2009. The UK ranks also below the European average in terms of consumption, an under-reported fact that may have something to do with Britain’s having the second-highest level of alcohol duty in the EU. The fall in consumption has been most dramatic among young people (the same is true of smoking) as a combination of draconian ID-checks (these days, you’re lucky to be sold a bottle of wine no questions asked if you’re under 40), rising prices and a media obsession with teenage drunkenness has made the traditional slow transition to the adult world of social drinking far more difficult to accomplish. This, of course, may help to explain why, when they finally are allowed to drink, so many young people seem unable to handle it.
As the harm reduces, so the zeal of the harm-reducers increases, as they focus all their energy and determination on ever-smaller numbers of the recalcitrant. At the same time, new targets come into their sights.
Two media organisations in particular enjoy scaring their audience with exaggerated levels of gloom. The Daily Mail and the BBC […] It’s not just alcohol and tobacco that regularly get this level of alarmist coverage. It’s also… illegal drugs, obesity, sex-trafficking, climate change, internet porn and the “sexualisation of childhood”.
Nanny statism, of course, is what happens when the government takes the regulation of morality away from bishops and gives it to doctors, social workers and professional experts.
I would actually say that this is what happens when you take the regulation of morality away from the people themselves. What happened to the personal responsibility that this government is supposedly such a believer in?
What is just as worrying, as is pointed out by Tim Worstall at Forbes is that the numbers upon which this alcohol policy are being built are themselves a complete fiction. As Worstall points out …
[W]hat drives political action is not the truth but what people believe to be the truth. So, if you can whip up a scare story about the ill effects […] then, as long as people believe you, you should be able to get some action taken […]
“Some 1,173,386 people in England were admitted to casualty for injuries or illnesses caused by drinking in 2010/11, compared with just 510,780 in 2002/3 […] The figures for last year represent an 11 per cent increase on the previous 12 months, when alcohol-related admissions stood at 1,056,962”
[…] there are two things odd about these numbers […] The first is that no one at all is measuring how many hospital admissions are as a result of alcohol. That’s just not what is done:
“It’s largely a function of methodology. Alcohol-related admissions are calculated in such a way that if you are unlucky enough, say, to be involved in a fire and admitted to hospital for the treatment of your burns, it will count as 0.38 of an alcohol-related admission — unless you happen to be under 15, when it won’t count at all.
“If you drown, it counts as 0.34 of an alcohol-related admission […] Getting chilled to the bone (accidental excessive cold) counts for 0.25 of an admission, intentional self-harm to 0.20 per cent of an admission.
“These fractions apply whether or not there was any evidence you had been drinking before these disasters befell you.”
So […] [w]e’re not in fact being told anything at all about the number of alcohol related hospital admissions. We’re being told about the numbers which are assumed to be alcohol related. And I think we can all see what the problem is here, can’t we? […]
Now, does all of this mean that there has been no rise in alcohol related diseases? I’ve no idea actually, but the point is that nor do you and nor do the people releasing these figures to us. The methods they’re using to compile the numbers, the things they’re not telling us about those numbers, mean that they lying to us with those numbers.
So basically the whole thing is a complete and utter lie from start to finish, and the numbers could be adjusted in the background to prove anything anyone wants. And politicians wonder why no-one believes nor trusts them. Would you?
So wither next? You’d better believe that these state-registered nanny do-gooders have their sights on all the “problem areas” mentioned above. Drugs have been a target for a long time; the heavy-handed mobsters must arrive soon. They’ve started on obesity already. And as for anything to do with sex, well we must ban that because, well, it’s just not nice is it?
Next we know they’ll be wanting to grant us licences to shag. Oh wait a minute. We have those already, it’s called marriage. It’s probably as well no-one takes blind bit of notice of that any more.
So be alert … your country needs lerts! Gawdelpus!
New Year, New Calendar
Did you change your calendars yesterday for the bright new 2012 versions?
I bet you didn’t! At at least not to the overhauled calendar being advocated by Richard Henry and Steve Hanke of Johns Hopkins University in the USA, because the proposed Hanke-Henry Calendar is a bit radically different: it has a reformed pattern of two 30 day months followed by a 31 day month, four times a year. So the rhyme, “30 days hath September, April, June and November” would be revised to “30 days hath September, June, March and December”.
This means that every year would be composed of a regular 52 seven-day weeks, and every date will always fall on the same day of the week — like Christmas Day would always be, say, a Sunday. It gets rid of the silliness of leap years and of remembering how many days each moth has.
So who sees the problem? Surely if it was that easy it would have been done centuries ago.
Yes, that’s right the Hanke-Henry Calendar produces a year of just 364 days. Whereas the Earth year is 365.2422 days (hence our need for a leap day every four years to correct for that almost ¼ day error). So what do they do? Yes, that’s right! They impose not leap days, but leap weeks by adding an extra week to the end of December every 5 or 6 years. GOK how they’d cope with the moveability Easter!?
There’s another flaw, which the Scientific American article doesn’t pick up on. Hanke and Henry want their calendar to start with 1 January on a Sunday (as 2012 is, and which will next occur in 2017). The only problem is that the International Standard on dates (ISO 8601, and see also the Wikipedia entry) decrees that the week starts on a Monday and that week 1 of the year is the first week containing at least 4 days (which turns out to mean the week containing the first Thursday of the year). It’s that “week starts on a Monday” rule that is the killer. Thanks to 2012 being a Leap Year the next year when 1 January is a Monday is 2018. Hanke and Henry don’t want to wait that long! But it would give time for everyone to agree to the idea and get their ducks lined up.
It’s an interesting and actually quite a logical idea, but to be honest I cannot see it catching on. If we thought the brouhaha over Year 2000 was painful, this would be ten times worse as every date algorithm would have to be not just checked but actually changed. And in the 11 years since Year 2000 the electronic world has expanded ten-fold, maybe a hundred-fold, beyond what it was in 2000. Business would never stand for what would be a hugely complex change — although it might help the unemployment figures.
All those who’d like to try this calendar say “Aye”.