Year [52] of Limerick Calendar System Comes to a Close - Happy New Year!
2024-03-20 - [52] 12:36
A little bit more than a year ago I came up with a calendar system called the "Limerick Calendar" which has 5 day weeks instead of 7 day weeks. It's called the Limerick Calendar because limericks are poems that have 5 lines to them. Considering the year is usually 365 days long, this means we can split the year into 73 weeks. 73 is just 1 week shy of a multiple of 12, which means we can have months that are almost exactly the same length with the exception of 1 extra week that needs to be inserted at some point.
This system turns out to be pretty similar to the Paratheo-Anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric (POEE) Calendar, which is described on page 00034 of the "Principia Discordia". My calendar has a few different rules, especially for leap year and the start of the year.
I never ended up writing about this system in a journal post like I wanted to on March 21st of 2023, so I'm trying to write one up quickly now in the last few moments of the day. This has been the first full year of the Limerick Calendar system since implementation to complete, so I want to celebrate! Today's date is [52] 12:36, which can also be represented as [52] 366. The day can also be represented with 2 Jokers side to side, which will be explained a little bit in the next section but also in greater detail in the wiki page I link below. The rules for the Limerick Calendar system are in the section after.
I did write about this system as a wiki page though, which is linked directly below:
Fun Playing Card Fact
The cards of a French-suited deck of playing cards are Ace, 2 through 10 (including 10), Jack, Queen, and King of 4 different suits each, which are Clubs, Hearts, Spades, and Diamonds. This totals 4 suits of 13 cards each, or 52 cards in total. If you take the value of Ace as the number 1, the value of Jack as 11, Queen as 12, and King as 13, then add up the values of all of the cards in the deck, you will get 364 as the sum. Decks tend to come with 2 Jokers as well. Counting each Joker as 1, you can use a single Joker to bring the value to 365, the length of a non-leap year, or both Jokers to bring the value to 366, the length of a leap year.
I use this fact to my advantage to be able to represent the day of the year as 2 playing cards.
Limerick Calendar Rules
The following rules describe the calendar system.
Day Rules
- Weeks have 5 days each
Month Rules
- Months 1 through 11 (including 11) have 6 weeks each, totalling 30 days for each month
- Month 12 has 7 weeks each, totalling 35 days in that month
- If the year is a leap year, the 12th month gets 1 more day at the end of week 7, making a total of 6 days that week and 36 days total in that month
Year Rules
- Leap years occur on every Limerick Calendar year that is divisible by 4 but not by 128
- The first day of the first month of year [1] in the Limerick Calendar (written as "[1] 1:1" or "[1] 1") occurred on March 21st, 1972 in the Gregorian Calendar
- The year before year [1] is year [0] and negative years precede year [0]
I set year [1] in the Limerick Calendar as year 1972 in the Gregorian Calendar so February 28th, 2100 in the Gregorian Calendar would be in within year [128] in the Limerick Calendar. This provides the longest period into the future of the 2 calendar systems having the same leap years, even if it does misalign the calendar systems before that point, considering February 29th, 1972 in the Gregorian calendar would be within year [0] in the Limerick Calendar, but year [0] in the Limerick Calendar only has 365 days in it.
Why did I make this system?
I'm a calendar nerd. Of course I would make my own calendar system! If you look at all of my journal posts, you will notice the Limerick Calendar date under the post titles right next to the Gregorian Calendar date, so I do actually use this system.
Happy New Year!
The new year quickly approaches, [53] 1:1. The 53rd card in a deck of French-suited playing cards is the first joker, so I am naming year [53] the "Year of the First Joker". March 21st, 2024 is also 1:1 [53], which is also 1 [53], which is also the 2 cards "[53] Joker + Ace of Clubs" in the Northern Hemisphere or "[53] Ace of Spades + Joker" in the Southern Hemisphere.