Friday, December 30, 2016

KLEM AM


Those dirty rings!

Speaking of the annular -- we're approaching another year, so it's time to reflect a bit on January. Everyone pretends to know that January was named after Janus, the two-faced worthless Roman god. But did you know that that may be false?
January (in Latin, Ianuarius) is named after the Latin word for door (ianua), since January is the door to the year. The month is conventionally thought of as being named after Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions in Roman mythology, but according to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity of the month.[1]
Interestingly, the Romans only had 10 months and each one was longer. How else to fill a full year with months? Surely I thought, the month is defined by how many times the moon orbits the earth [moon, month, get it?]. Wrong!  The moon goes around the earth 13 times in a year, not 12 as people might think. My faith in the power of words and etymology is shaken. It's a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world:


n.b., that is the original "Coca-Cola" version of the song -- the one banned in the UK.

8 comments:

ricpic said...

When I was a kid trudging around on my kid round of chores and shivering my butt off I often wondered what was "new" about January. Why shouldn't the New Year be April 1st when everything was warming and springing back to life? But being a kid I never said anything about my severe New Year's doubts to anyone, kid or adult.

"What's the matter with kids today?"

Who sang that and in what movie of a show? Hint: he was a real dick.

ndspinelli said...

ric, One of the 2-3 musicals I liked, Dick van Dyke in Bye Bye Birdie. My favorite musical of all time was on the other night, West Side Story.

ricpic said...

spinelli for the win!

Amartel said...

Wow, that lady in the Wisk ad just can't seem to get hubby out the door in presentable style. She should take that shirt to the Ancient Chinese Secret guy. He'll wash that shirt good.

chickelit said...

Calgon!

chickelit said...

Amartel said...
Wow, that lady in the Wisk ad just can't seem to get hubby out the door in presentable style.

Suppose she found lipstick stains? You wouldn't see that one.

Amartel said...

Well it was the 70s so it wouldn't be in an ad, the problem of removing lipstick, ostensibly not the wife's own, from the husband's garments. They still had some standards albeit including the standard assumption that only women and Chinese people were in charge of the laundry responsibilities. Now, the ad would be about how the husband needs WiskGon to remove evidence of his cheating (hahaha, the wife thinks he's monogamous, hilarious) and maybe the husband's wife is actually a husband when the ad plays on certain channels.

Amartel said...

Ancient Chinese Secret guy could still be around in modern times (why abandon a perfectly good ad) but with some modifications. Now, he's have to be presented as an "in joke" so no one can boycott Calgon for race discrimination. Now, he'd be super old with a beard and maybe some sort of spirit animal, a bird on his shoulder or something, a ferret, like mythological, fictional Ancient Chinese Secret guy. He's practically Yoda, ffs. Also, just for good measure, he's gay. Still lying about laundry, though.