英文杂志-Magazine：Calendars

CalendarsAre you looking forward to summer? In Saint¹ Petersburg, where this article was written, a day can be less than less six hours long in the middle of winter and nearly 19 hours in summer. At this time of year, you can easily see in people’s faces that they are ready for brighter, sunnier days to come round again.

Months from the moon and years from the sunTo the first people it was obvious that time went in circles. The sun rises (comes up in the morning) and sets (goes down in the evening). The moon waxes² (gets fatter or wider) and wanes³ (gets thinner or narrower). The seasons follow each other in order. These things happen because we are all going round in circles…the earth spins round in 24 hours, the moon goes around the Earth, and the Earth goes round the Sun in about 365 and a quarter days. The most natural kind of calendar comes from the sun and the moon. You can count the number of days and nights in the moon’s cycle from New Moon (when it is all dark) to Full Moon (a bright disk), and back again: 29 and a half.

The basic problem for calendar makers⁴ is how to get the months (which come from the moon) to stay in synch with the years. The years all have a bit more than 12 New Moons in them. Maybe you read about the Chinese New Year in Claire Powell’s article in January. If you did, you already know that some years, the Chinese calendar has an extra month, so they have exactly 235 months in every period of 19 years. This article is about how the western world solved the same problem by adding an extra day in leap years (and having longer months the rest of the time.)

Days and weeks from the planetsYou can’t find any cycles of seven days by looking at the sky. However, the ancient world knew five planets⁵ apart from the sun and moon: Venus, Mercury⁶, Mars⁷, Jupiter⁸ and Saturn⁹. They probably made the week seven days long to give one day for each. In English, the first days of the week clearly come from The Sun (Sunday) and The Moon (Monday). The last day comes from Saturn (Saturday). Just like the rest of our language, an English week is a mixture of Latin¹⁰ and words from other places … Germanic gods: Tiw (an Anglo-Saxon god of the sun and war) and Wodin (the head of Anglo-Saxon gods) for Tuesday and Wednesday and Scandinavian gods Thor (another god of war) and Frigg (goddess of love) for Thursday and Friday.

Months of the YearOur names of months all come from Latin. Janus a god with two faces, the god of doors and gates gives us January; and February comes from a Roman festival of spring cleaning. Mars, who didn’t get a day of the week in English, got the whole month of March. Jupiter , well his wife was Juno – which makes the month of June. Most of the later months just come from the Latin words for numbers 7, 8, 9 and 10 septem, octo, nove, decem. But why isn’t September month number seven? It was for the Romans, because they started the year with March.

The Emperors’ calendarsJuly is occupied by Julius Caesar, who also occupied part of Britain. And August by Augustus Caesar who was the next Roman emperor. These two men both played an important role in creating the modern calendar. The Julian calendar (which Julius introduced in 46 BC) had a leap year every four years, when one day was added onto the end of the year (as it was then) on February 29th. Julius’ calendar was much simpler than the old one, and it was pretty accurate¹¹, although not as good as the Chinese one. It was only 11 minutes and 14 seconds a year too slow. Somehow, the people in charge of the calendars in Rome didn’t understand their instructions and added an extra day every three years. Augustus, the next emperor, corrected that mistake but left the leap years as they were, so the calendar went on being 11 minutes a year too slow for centuries. Russia only introduced the Julian calendar in 1700 and changed to the Gregorian one after the revolution.

Behind the timesOver the centuries those 11 extra minutes in the Julian calendar added up to quite a lot. Our modern "Gregorian" calendar goes more quickly because we don’t have leap years at the end of most centuries – only 1600 and 2000. When Pope¹² Gregory brought it in in 1582, they had to take out 10 days to catch up. The year jumped directly from 4th to 15th October. In the same year, William Shakespeare got married in Stratford-upon-Avon, but Britain went on for another 180 years with the old calendar. By 1752, when Britain changed to the new Gregorian calendar, they needed to miss 11 days to catch up. This caused violent protests…people thought the government was making their lives 11 days shorter, or even worse, stealing their wages for the 11 missing¹³ days. Here in Russia, the years carried on being a bit too long right into the twentieth century. On the 25th October 1917, when the Bolsheviks pushed their way into the Winter Palace it was already 7th November across the rest of Europe…a difference of 13 days. As a result, in 1918 Russia missed the whole first half of February: going directly from 31st January to 14th February. Maybe they were pleased to get closer to the summer.
 

1 saint   

n.圣徒；基督教徒；vt.成为圣徒，把...视为圣徒

参考例句：

• He was made a saint.他被封为圣人。
• The saint had a lowly heart.圣人有谦诚之心。

2 waxes   

n.蜡( wax的名词复数 )；耳垢，耳屎

参考例句：

• She waxes righteously indignant if anyone tries to contradict her. 如果有人想反驳她，她说起话来就会义愤填膺。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The moon waxes till it becomes full, and then wanes. 月亮渐盈，直到正圆，然后消亏。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 wanes   

v.衰落( wane的第三人称单数 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡

参考例句：

• The moon waxes till it becomes full, and then wanes. 月亮渐盈，直到正圆，然后消亏。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The moon waxes and wanes every month. 月亮每个月都有圆缺。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 planets   

行星( planet的名词复数 )； 地球（尤指环境）

参考例句：

• Does life exist on other planets? 其他行星上有生命吗？
• the planets of our solar system 太阳系的行星

6 mercury   

n.汞，水银，水银柱

参考例句：

• The liquid we can see in thermometers is mercury.我们看到的温度计里的液体是水银。
• Mercury has a much greater density than water.水银的密度比水大得多。

7 Mars   

n.火星，战争

参考例句：

• As of now we don't know much about Mars.目前我们对火星还知之甚少。
• He contended that there must be life on Mars.他坚信火星上面一定有生物。

8 Jupiter   

n.木星

参考例句：

• Jupiter is unlike the Earth in almost every way.木星与地球几乎完全不同。
• The astronomers were taking an observation of Jupiter.天文学家们正在观测木星。

9 Saturn   

n.农神，土星

参考例句：

• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings.天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。
• These comparisons suggested that Saturn is made of lighter materials.这些比较告诉我们，土星由较轻的物质构成。

10 Latin   

adj.拉丁的，拉丁语的，拉丁人的；n.拉丁语

参考例句：

• She learned Latin without a master.她无师自通学会了拉丁语。
• Please use only Latin characters.请仅使用拉丁文字符。

11 accurate   

adj.正确无误的；准确的，精确的

参考例句：

• He has made an accurate measurement of my garden.他准确地丈量了我的花园。
• He is always accurate in what he says and does.他说的和做的总是正确无误。

12 pope   

n.（罗马天主教的）教皇

参考例句：

• The Pope is the spiritual leader of many Christians.教皇是众多基督徒的宗教领袖。
• The Pope is the supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church.教皇是罗马天主教的最高领袖。

13 missing   

adj.遗失的，缺少的，失踪的

参考例句：

• Check the tools and see if anything is missing.检点一下工具，看有无丢失。
• All the others are here;he's the only one missing.别人都来了，就短他一个。