January arrived again a few days ago, just when we expected it.
The name January comes from Janus, the Roman god of doors and beginnings. I didn't know that doors had their own god. I am wondering whether Janus oversees those little dog doors, too.
Janus has two faces, one looking forward and one looking backward. That's a human trait, isn't it?
January can be a woman's name. January Jones is an actress who was on Mad Men.
I had heard the origin of January before, but I wasn't sure about the names of the other months, so I looked them up.
February may have gotten its name from the Roman festival of forgiveness of sins. "Februa" was the Latin name of the purification feast held in midmonth. I guess purification was important to the Romans, but not so important that it deserved a month any longer than 28 or 29 days.
February gets pronounced often as "FEB-you-erry." The American Heritage Dictionary says that this pronunciation is so common that we can't think of it as wrong. The dropping of the "r" is called "dissimilation," when sounds near each other are similar and one is changed. Similar examples of this are these words cate(r)pillar, rese(r)voir, terrest(r)ial, southe(r)ner, barbitu(r)ate, gove(r)nor, and su(r)prised."
March is named for Mars, the Roman god of war. I'm not sure whether it's because the month is blustery.
In our calendar, the Gregorian calendar, March is the third month. In the Julian calendar, it was the first month. Pope Gregory XIII put the calendar in place in 1582, based on a solar year. It replaced the Julian calendar, which Julius Caesar introduced in 46 B.C. with a little help from Cleopatra and her astronomers. That calendar miscalculated the length of the solar year, though, and steadily moved off-kilter from the seasons.
That's what led to the Gregorian calendar.
In other contexts, March is a verb or a noun.
Today is the day I march into the bakery and order an eclair.
Oliver Twist was chosen to make the long march to the master to ask for more delicious gruel.
Some people believe the name for April comes from the Latin word meaning "to open" because April is when flower buds open. Others think it comes from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. And still others say it's from the Roman word for second, because April was the second month in the Julian calendar.
That last origin lacks romance.
April is a popular name for girls. Some people named April report that they soon grow tired of people asking whether they were born in April. I can see that.
May is named for the Roman goddess of fertility, Maia. In addition to its job as a month name, "May" is also a female name and a verb.
June is named for Juno, Roman goddess of marriage and childbirth. In the hierarchy of goddesses, she was at the top. Clearly the deities were important to the people when the calendar was made. I wonder what names we'd use if we decided to start a new calendar in 2019.
June is a name for girls or boys, but it has been far less common as a male name since the 1930s.
The names for July and August show when politics intruded. July was named in 45 B.C. for Roman dictator Julius Caesar, who had been born in that month.
Before that, though, it was called "Quintilis," the Latin word for fifth. Poor Julius was able to enjoy only one July. He was killed in March 44 B.C., before the next July came around.
Until the 19th century, "July" had the accent on the first syllable, JU-ly. I still hear it that way at times.
August is the month formerly known as "Sextilis," when it was the sixth month in the Roman calendar. Roman emperor Augustus Caesar, the grandnephew and adopted son of Julius, named it after himself in 8 B.C. It was the month of some of his key military victories.
August is the only month that's also an adjective. It describes something grand or dignified. But the adjective has the accent on the second syllable, au-GUST.
After August, the names of the month become disappointingly mundane.
September is from the Latin word for "seven." October is from the Latin word for "eight." November is from the Latin word for "nine." December is from the Latin word for "10."
Again, the numbers don't match what month they are now because the numbers are from the Julian calendar.
I can't end things that way. How about the origin of the word "calendar"?
Calendar came from the Latin word for an account book. The first day of the month was called "kalendae" or "kalends," the day debts were due.
That's a better ending.
Sources: California Institute of Technology, Oxford Dictionaries, American Heritage Dictionary, Encyclopedia Britannica, History.com, BabyNameWizard.com, wordinfo.info, WordOrigins.org, Merriam-Webster.com
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Style on 01/14/2019