As I reached for the grapefruit this morning I remembered that I had forgotten to remember something. I had meant to look up what exactly is an Ide.
Note: I already know that "IDE" is not a word you can play in Scrabble, although it is a word found in some crossword puzzles, kind of like the word
ADE. Clue-4 Down-Summertime Treat.
Right.
But not a three letter actual word. Scrabble and Crosswords are part of my world, a bigger part these days than I would have imagined say, a year ago. I do a Crossword every day, some not so successfully, some I knock out over a cup of tea before it, the tea, gets cold. I play Scrabble on line and in person. This week will be the first Springtime meet-up of the Friday Night Orphans of Love Scrabble Association. Applications for membership are open. I have two friends who, as I do play for the love of the game, and tooth and nail to win. Challenges occur very often but I am always trying to slip a word or two through if I can. It's important to remember that QUA is valid, QUI, QUO, QUE are not.
I like to look up the meanings of the words even though it's not necessary to know the meanings in Scrabble, you can play XI or XU or QI, but I like to know that the middle one there is a Vietnamese coin. (Who said the words had to be in English?? The Scrabble people did....but they like to stretch English juuussssst a bit.)
There is no such thing as an IDE, an IDES however, is variously defined as a feast day of March and also May, July and several others months, usually on the 15th day but also on the 13th in some months which I will have to go look up now because, even though I read about this only minutes ago, the CD-ROM (not a word in Scrabble) didn't process all of the information.
.....
It all, of course, has to do with the Moon and Market days. Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar#Months
...
So, I missed the Ides of March and we have shifted time so much that this year the 15th marks the New Moon of March, not the Full Moon which doesn't arrive until the 30th. Wine and Cheese on the roofdeck for sure.
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Well, gawrsh. Sorry you missed the ides of March. I celebrated and reminded others around me of both Pi Day and the following days and their significance.
ReplyDeleteIn your link, it is said, "The nones are related to the nundinae, the market days which fell on the eighth day of the eight-day market week used by the Romans. They are so called because, in the Roman system of inclusive counting, they came every nine days. From the nones to the ides, there was exactly one market week. From the ides to the end of the month (except in February), there were exactly two market weeks; hence the mnemonic:
'March, May, July, October,
These are they,
Make nones the seventh,
Ides the fifteenth day.'"
So, although the ides was originally based on the moon, this quote makes it clear that this month has the ides on the 15th.