"Beware the Ides of March", the soothsayer warned Julius Caesar. Caesar didn't heed the warning and we all know his fate. At least that is what history tells us. I've a feeling Caesar did mind the date but he simply got lost in the hopelessly complex Roman calendar and confused the D-day. Ides are only one of the ingredients of the Roman calendar. The other two are calends (or kalends) and nones. The calends are straightforward -- they always fall on the first of every month. Nones on the fifth or the seventh, and ides on the thirteenth or the fifteenth. All dates are counted backwards from the nearest nones, calends, or ides.
Here's a little rhyme to help you remember the dates: March, July, October, and May The nones are on the seventh day. And ides fall eight days after the Nones. More words about calendar this week. Interestingly, the word calendar derives from Latin calendarium (account book) since it was used to keep track of the date when debts were due. ides (eyedz) noun The 15th day of March, May, July, or October, and the 13th day of the other months in the ancient Roman calendar. [From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin idus.] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=ides -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "No need to beware the ides of June. Good news on the inflation front fueled a Wall Street rally for the second consecutive day on Friday." Andrew Farrell; Sunny Day On Wall Street; Forbes (New York); Jun 15, 2007. Sponsors' Messages: New photos, quotes every day, dogs on Saturday, Nature on Sunday, meditations sprinkled throughout. A true feast of visual stimuli http://thedailybuzzz.com Subscribe to http://delanceyplace.com -- a carefully selected non-fiction book excerpt free to your email each day. It's the thinking person's daily quotation. ............................................................................ Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say? -Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., novelist (1922-2007) Discuss this week's words on our bulletin board: http://wordsmith.org/board Remove, change address, gift subs: http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscriber.html Pronunciation: http://wordsmith.org/words/ides.wav http://wordsmith.org/words/ides.ram Permalink: http://wordsmith.org/words/ides.html This message was sent to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]".
