Author Topic: What day does June 21 mark for you?  (Read 15525 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

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What day does June 21 mark for you?
« on: June 23, 2018, 03:44:05 pm »
I've heard this day called many things, some of them unique to BetterMost. Most confusing is calling it midsummer, when there are three months of summer to come! I'd like your opinion, please.
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Offline CellarDweller

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Re: What day does June 21 mark for you?
« Reply #1 on: June 26, 2018, 06:46:12 pm »
I've seen the term "midsummer" as well, and like you, found it confusing.


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline brianr

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Re: What day does June 21 mark for you?
« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2018, 08:05:43 pm »
Shakespeare called it midsummer in "A Midsummer's Dream".  We will be celebrating MidWinter in the city next Saturday. It should have been last Saturday (closest to the shortest day) but there was an All Blacks versus France Rugby Match on in the city Stadium so MidWinter was put off  ;D
We had some snow yesterday morning and the official maximum temperature was 8'C but that was in the afternoon. I went down to the city about midday and it was only showing 5'C. Saturday is forecast 11'C and 12'C on Sunday but then back to the usual 10'C for this time of year.

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: What day does June 21 mark for you?
« Reply #3 on: June 26, 2018, 09:46:36 pm »
You guys forgot to vote!
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: What day does June 21 mark for you?
« Reply #4 on: June 27, 2018, 09:22:39 am »
I've heard this day called many things, some of them unique to BetterMost. Most confusing is calling it midsummer, when there are three months of summer to come! I'd like your opinion, please.

I've seen the term "midsummer" as well, and like you, found it confusing.

I'm completely going off memory here, and we all know how [un]reliable that can be, but I think I read somewhere that some peoples divided the year into only two seasons, winter and summer, so that made the summer solstice "midsummer."

You can look at this the other way 'round, too. There is a famous and quite lovely Christmas carol by Christina Rossetti called "In the Bleak Midwinter." Of course, Christmas and the winter solstice are no more in the middle of winter than the summer solstice is the middle of summer. (The tune for the carol is "Cranham," by Gustav Holst.)
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: What day does June 21 mark for you?
« Reply #5 on: June 27, 2018, 06:43:14 pm »
You guys forgot to vote!


Ooops!

Took care of that!


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: What day does June 21 mark for you?
« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2018, 06:13:26 pm »
If June, July and August comprise summer, then shouldn't midsummer be on July 15?
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Offline CellarDweller

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Re: What day does June 21 mark for you?
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2018, 06:21:40 pm »
If June, July and August comprise summer, then shouldn't midsummer be on July 15?


I found this online, not sure how correct it is.


Q:  I always found it strange that the day which marks the beginning of the season of summer is called "mid-summer", which I understand would mean "middle of summer". While midsummer is on the summer solstice (June 20–21), the actual middle of summer would be about August 6, no?

So why is the first day of summer called midsummer?



A:  The word midsummer comes to us from Old English, and it has a Dutch cognate midzomer, and Scandinavian cognates (e.g. midsommar in Swedish), so it may even come from an older Germanic language. Both the old Anglo-Saxon calendar and the old Icelandic calendar had two seasons, summer and winter. For these calendars, "Midsummer's Day" would have fallen near the middle of summer (probably not the exact middle ... summer started in mid-April in the old Icelandic calendar, and on a full moon in the old Anglo-Saxon calendar).

The Anglo-Saxon calendar also explains why summer and winter are words which have roots in Proto-Germanic, while fall and spring were not used for the seasons until Middle English, and autumn is originally a Latin word.



https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/117183/etymology-of-midsummer-why-is-the-first-day-of-summer-called-middle-of-summ


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: What day does June 21 mark for you?
« Reply #8 on: July 12, 2018, 08:04:42 pm »
And of course, thanks to Julius Caesar's astronomers, the whole business got out of whack. The Christian Church set Christmas on Dec. 25, because it was thought to be the winter solstice, and St. John Baptist's Day on June 24, because it was thought to be the summer solstice.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: What day does June 21 mark for you?
« Reply #9 on: July 13, 2018, 06:09:10 pm »
Always fun to have a messed up calendar!   ;D


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!