What happens on May 33rd but only on leap year?

Factual Questions
141

I’ll ante in. The syntax and diction would fairly allow for the following scenario:

Someone looking at a calendar (or almanac, or diary or whatever…), singles out the page entitled “May” wherein there is a list of >33 events. On leap years, the 33rd item listed is…

The text might be a Roman Catholic saints’ calendar ? a farmer’s almanac ? to do list at the National Bureau of Standards’ clock ? or some such document. I’d start thinking along the lines of what things might change with leap years. My bet is a religious event, but it’s been a looong time since Sunday school.

142

I’m going out on a limb here and bet that the answer is

New Year’s Eve.

143

On the official site, the question is phrased “…on Leap Years”. The capitalization of Leap Years leads me to think that perhaps “Leap Years” is a proper noun. Make sense?

144

So is it over? I clicked on that link and it didn’t have the answer…

145

here are some clues from the unofficial website

Brian said - “Don’t want a mathamatical event, it’s the event that occurs on the day. That’s with our current Gregorian calendar … one must ask why the calendar is called gregorian … maybe named after Gregore or something. So someone could invent a calendar … (at which point Bob cut him off)”
Bob said - “Here’s a hint, just go to the library and start reading the books. " (this during a conversation on 1/23 where they were discussing how people are swamping the internet, and how the answer hasn’t been found there).
Bob said “there’s no Pope Gregory in the answer.”
Brian said - “I have the calendar in question in my left hand … there is no gregory or gegorian here anywhere.”
Brian says 'It is NOT the Hal Mann Decimal Calendar , cross
it off the list. There are many calendars to pick from.”
Brian said “It is cleary labled May 33rd on this calendar”. ( So now can we forget the odd date translations like May 33rd is June 2nd etc… it is NOT it. You gotta find a calendar where it shows a May 33rd).
Brian said “I want to make it clear, we are NOT working with the Gregorian Calendar. Put it on the website, make it
offical.”

146

Has anyone actually SENT any of these guesses in? Maybe we’ve gotten it right, but the answer wasn’t submitted?

147

What yabob said earlier about the Martian calendar would be a pretty good possibility. A calendar for a non-Earth location is looking pretty good to me.

148

Huh??? What’s that supposed to mean??? One says it IS the Gregorian calender, the other says it ISN’T. Or is the second statement correcting the first?

149

Not sure this is at all useful, but…

From the historyserver.org site:

[quote]
The Revolutionary Calendar
By Martin Liechty

The Revolutionary Calendar was officially in use from 22 September 1793 (1st Vendémiaire of year II) till the end of 1805 (11. Ventôse of XIV). The time period started actually on the 22nd September 1792. So the republican year started on the 22nd September (Gregorian) and ended after 12 month à 30 days on the 16th September of the following (Gregorian) year. The remaining 5 days (17th till 21st September) were added as the so called “Sanscullotides”). During leap years (1796, 1800, 1804) an additional Sanscullotide (the “jour complémentaire”) was added.

How to calculate
Revolution Calendar to Gregorian Calendar

Example: 25 Brumaire an VIII
take 1792 plus 8 years -> 1800
check if the 25 Brumaire is between 22 September and 31 December -> YES -> year 1800 is correct
lookup the the respective Gregorian day for the 25 Brumaire -> 15 November
result: 15 November 1800
Example: 23 Ventôse an VI

take 1792 plus 6 years -> 1798
check if the 23 Ventôse is between 22 September and 31 December -> NO -> take 1798 plus 1 year -> year 1799 is correct
lookup the the respective Gregorian day for the 23 Ventôse -> 13 March
result: 13 March 1799
Gregorian Calendar to Revolution Calendar

Example: 7 October 1802

take 1802 minus 1792 -> an X
check if the 7 October is between 22 September and 31 December -> YES (of course) -> an X is correct
lookup the the respective revolutionary day for the 7 October -> 16 Vendémiaire
result: 16 Vendémiaire an X
Example: 17 may 1799

take 1799 minus 1792 -> an VII
check if the he 22 may is between 22 September and 31 December -> NO (of course not) -> take an VII minus 1 year -> an VI is correct
lookup the the respective revolutionary day for the 22 may -> 3 Prairial
result: 3 Prairial an VI
Exception

Be careful with the leap years (years with 366 days, 1796, 1800, 1804)! On leap years the 29 February corresponds with the 11 Ventôse. So every Gregorian day corresponds with the next Revolution Calendar day. So the 1 March is the 12 Ventôse and the 21 September is the Jour complémentaire.

[quote]

150

I doubt it, but what if May 33rd was Leap Day in whatever calendar they’re using.

It would than follow that May 33rd is what happens only on leap years. (Coincidentally, on May 33rd)

151

Here’s what bothering me about this question. The grammar is all wrong. If I was trying to ask the question they seem to be asking, I would say “What happens on May 33rd but only during a leap year.?” Not “on Leap Years”.

They seem to be sticklers for language, so why this non-obvious choice (unless it’s a Milwaukee-ism, in which case mea-culpa).

Notice also that on the official site Leap Years is capitalized, while the rest of the quesiton is not. Is there a book that takes place on the planet Leap Years?

It’s a WAG, but a G none-the-less.

Pete

152

Followup on the “Martian” angle. Here is an extensive site having to do with Martian timekeeping and calendars. It may be of interest even if it doesn’t provide an answer:

http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/mars_ultor/mars/calendar.htm

In particular, under this link you will find a dozen schemes which have a month named “May” in them, with an excess of 33 days:

http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/mars_ultor/mars/chronium/compare2.htm

153

Here’s something that just popped into my head:

May 33rd every leap year is Sadie Hawkins Day.

From the “L’il Abner” comics by Al Capp. Sadie Hawkins Day was the day when all the young ladies of Dogpatch pursued the men. The ladies had matrimony in mind, and Sadie Hawkins Day was the one day every four years when they were allowed to chase after the men they wanted to marry.

Memory is hazy here, but I seem to recall some crazy condition attached to Sadie Hawkins Day in the L’il Abner comic–Sadie Hawkins Day was always in a leap year, but the date of SH Day was something wonky, and “May 33rd” would fit that description.

154

No such luck with Lil’ Abner.

From: http://www.dogpatchusa.com/questions.html

Looks like a leap year wasn’t even involved.

155

Hmmm. Sadie Hawkins Day appeared in Al Capp’s comic strip on November 15, 1937. It was often celebrated thereafter on that date, but somewhere along the line it dovetailed with the traditional “women’s proposal day,” traditionally February 29.

Capp intended the incident to be a one-time stunt in Lil’ Abner, but his fans persuaded him to bring the event back in his strip annually.

Could this have something to do with the Borrowed Days legends? February stole 'em from January, and March stole 'em from April, but I’ve never seen anything about May.

156

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by RonA *
**

Brian said - “Don’t want a mathamatical event, it’s the event that occurs on the day. That’s with our current Gregorian calendar … **one must ask why the calendar is called gregorian … maybe named after Gregore or something. So someone could invent a calendar … (at which point Bob cut him off)”

157

Heh…The answer to this is going to be so blazingly obvious that everyone misses it, I’m sure. I haven’t got a remote clue what the answer is, but I, too, would guess it has something to do with funky fiction stuff (like how often Tiggers bathe)…Looking at what they said:

“One must ask why the calendar is called gregorian…maybe named after Gregore or something. So someone could invent a calendar…” and then he gets cut off.

So while we know they ARE using a calendar of some sorts (they’ve said it), “someone could invent a calendar…” implies that it’s from something fictional.

“Here’s a hint, just go to the library and start reading the books.”

It’s probably not going to be found on the web because that would be way too easy and they KNOW everyone is going to be searching the web…If it were from a fictional story of some sort, that story isn’t likely to have been typed up and put on the web, so the only way to find it would be to read it in a library or if you own it.

“I have the calendar in my left hand…there is no gregory or gregorian here anywhere.”

So it IS a physical calendar of some sort…But if I drew a “Tsugumian Calendar” up, with random dates on it, it would be a calendar (of events in my head) with no gregory or gregorian anywhere on it. And since it’s a “physical” calendar, that suggests it’s from an actual book (not info on the net), going back to the “go to the library” thing. It could be the calendar at the start of a book of some sort (like how some fantasy books have maps of the “world” on the first pages…the world isn’t real, but it’s still a map of the world technically).

“It is clearly labelled May 33rd on this calendar.”

So again, it’s an actual calendar, and says May 33rd. A Far Side calendar or something (like the page suggests) sounds along the lines of what it would be. There are a number of “comic a day” calendar things.

So basically, I have no idea what the answer is, but it’s not going to be something you can type into a search engine and find…And they said there were many different types of calendars to search, which could, again, imply a fictional one. Maybe some sort of Dungeons & Dragons calendar or something from a popular (or unpopular, heh) book. Hell, it could be one of those “Horror Scope” type joke pages from an Archie comic where they make up “funny” things, and it could say May 33rd. Though the leap year thing throws a kink into it…

Aghh…I have no idea. Maybe it’s on a calendar in the entrance of the library of the city they’re in and they know no one is going to go search the library instead of using the net, so it’s “right under your nose” so to speak, heh.

  • Tsugumo
158

The good books?? Bible, Torah, Koran, etc.??? Anyone knowledgeable enough to know of calendars related to those sacred texts??

Am I so far out in left field that nobody can see me?:smiley:

159

BTW, did you notice that the guy who runs the “unofficial” site is now fulminating on it about the “official” site stealing his data without asking him or giving him credit. You probably couldn’t find an “official” site before because there wasn’t one, whether they actually lifted it from the fan site or not.

160

Ok, I admit I’ve been following this thread only sporadically (don’t want to lose my mind) so apologies if someone’s mentioned this before:

IIRC Umberto Eco’s novel Foucault’s Pendulumn contains a substantial plotline involving confusion between the different dates of adopting the Gregorian calendar. Anything there?