this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
800 points (98.2% liked)

Linguistics Humor

201 readers
2 users here now

Do you like languages and linguistics ? Here is for having fun about it


Share this community: [[email protected]](/c/[email protected])


Serious Linguistics community: [email protected]


Rules:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

The Roman year originally started in March (the month of Mars) because that's when the war season started. January and February were at the end of the year and originally weren't named at all.

But at some point, the Romans had a problem with one of their politicians. He had a one year term. To get rid of him, they moved the new year to January. It was supposed to be temporary but somehow we're still living with the results of that lifehack.