AikiWeb: The Source for Aikido Information AikiWeb's principal purpose is to serve the Internet community as a repository and dissemination point for aikido information.
Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the
world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to
over 22,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a
wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history,
humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.
If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced
features available, you will need to register first. Registration is
absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!
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 one with alone could come from Shakespeare.
Thirty days has September
April, June and November
All the rest have thirty-one
Except February alone
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:
西向く士
nishi muku samurai
2 4 6 9 11
Ni shi mu and ku are ways of pronouncing 2 4 6 and 9. That's called goroawase. I talked about it briefly in tokyo sky tree.
Samurai is not the usual kanji for samurai 侍. It's the shi 士 from bushi 武士, 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 士 looks like the letters for ten 十 plus one 一. 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.
06-06-2012 09:33 AM 
