Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Ides, Nones and Kalends
When I was discussing IDEs the other day I was going to craft a title along the lines of "Beware the IDEs of ..." phrase (as in "Beware the Ides of March") but I couldn't come up with anything clever enough. And then I decided to look up the etymology of Ides. Nothing really ominous, it literally means March 15th based on the Roman calendar.
The Roman calendar organized each month around three specially-named days, each of which served as a reference point for the other days:
Kalends - 1st day of the month.
Nones - 7th day in March, May, July, and October; 5th in the other months.
Ides - 15th day in March, May, July, and October; 13th in the other months.
The other days of the month were identified by counting backwards from the next named day (e.g. V Nones would be five days before the Nones).
The Roman calendar organized each month around three specially-named days, each of which served as a reference point for the other days:
Kalends - 1st day of the month.
Nones - 7th day in March, May, July, and October; 5th in the other months.
Ides - 15th day in March, May, July, and October; 13th in the other months.
The other days of the month were identified by counting backwards from the next named day (e.g. V Nones would be five days before the Nones).
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