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<blogEntry id="4531">
	<title><![CDATA[samurai | how many days in a month?]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[[indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][i][URL="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bcgovphotos/6331360537/"]Prayer /// Red Vector Thoughts[/URL] by Vector Hugo[/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/i]


The other day someone asked me how you remember the number of days in the months in English. We use this little rhyme. It sounds very old. The rhyme [I]one[/I] with [I]alone[/I] could come from Shakespeare.

[INDENT][INDENT][I]Thirty days has September
 April, June and November
 All the rest have thirty-one
 Except February alone[/I][/INDENT][/INDENT]

I found that there is a mnemonic using knuckles too. When you count out all the months though there are a couple of knuckles left over so - no. There has to be a more satisfactory solution.

In Japan they use a very short sentence:

[INDENT][INDENT]&#35199;&#21521;&#12367;&#22763;

[I]nishi muku samurai[/I]

2   4      6   9       11
[/INDENT][/INDENT]
Ni shi mu and ku are ways of pronouncing 2 4 6 and 9. That's called goroawase. I talked about it briefly in [URL="http://mooninthewater.net/aikido/2012/05/28/tokyo-sky-tree/"]tokyo sky tree[/URL].

Samurai is not the usual kanji for samurai &#20365;. It's the shi &#22763; from bushi &#27494;&#22763;, another word for samurai. It's also used as a suffix meaning scholar in words for professions like bengoshi - lawyer - and keirishi - accountant. The Japanese letter &#22763; looks like the letters for ten &#21313; plus one &#19968;. Or eleven.

So Japanese people remember that all the months have 31 days except the second, fourth, sixth, ninth and eleventh.

So wow. I look at it in admiration. Short, elegant and cool. Perfect. You probably won't forget it now either.

Niall

[i]
[URL="http://babelhut.com/languages/japanese/how-the-japanese-remember-months/"]article[/URL] about this mnemonic

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_days_hath_September[/url]


cool illustration: [URL="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pointofdesign/2951536326/"]Prayer /// Red Vector Thoughts by Vector Hugo[/URL]


my home page with a mirror of these blog posts plus other stuff: [URL="http://mooninthewater.net/aikido"]mooninthewater.net/aikido[/URL]
 

my [URL="http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=75&filter[1]=Niall%20Matthews"]columns[/URL] on aikiweb[/i]


© niall matthews 2012]]></body>
	<date>06-06-2012</date>
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