Mum’s Monday: What’s in a date?

Every single day has some significance to someone all over the world. Every single date is up for debate, mainly on which calendar to follow, be it the Gregorian Calendar or the Judicial Calendar. And there’s even different formats when displaying a date, which has caused many a debate over the years between English and American date format. Here in England, our date’s format is: 04/05/2020 – which when said aloud rolls off the tongue like so; the fourth of May, twenty-twenty. In America, their date’s format is: 05/04/2020 – which rolls of the tongue like so; May, the fourth, twenty-twenty, with the historical rationale that the month is the least important part, thus put second.

I chose the date 04/05/2020, not because of the cultural celebration of “may the fourth be with you,” a pun on the common phrase said in the Star Wars franchise, “may the force be with you”, but instead because it’s the date I’m writing this article on. However, to commemorate the date, whilst it’s difficult to find an official source of first use, an early use of the phrase was back in 1979 and was printed in the London Evening News. The Conservative party took out a full-page ad with the title, “May the Fourth Be With You”, celebrating that the then Prime Minister, Maggie Thatcher would be first elected. Of course, fans of the Star Wars franchise have taken on that phrase and used it to annoy those who have a birthday on that day.

Speaking of birthdays, every single date in the year has someone celebrating their birthday on it or recognising an historical birth or death on that day. Today, there’s approximately 17.7million people across the world celebrating their birthday. I will be among that average on 07/09/2020. Whilst it’s safe to say that it may not be the actual date itself, but the recognisable factor of it being the day you are born, but people do make that particular day special in some way, whether it be just a break from work and lounge about the house, go out to dinner, or have a massive party; it only comes round once a year (unless you’re the Queen).

Here in England, we have a selection of days known as Bank Holidays, which are a single day where business shut down. Known as a national holiday, traditionally started off as being purely for the banks, hence the name, the holiday has since become a country wide affair, except if you’re in the retail sector then there is no such thing as a bank holiday. In fact, there’s no such thing as a Boxing Day, either.

Although retail outlets and various other businesses remain in operation on some national holidays, there’s one which has much more of an impact, such as Christmas day, which is on the 25^th of December, every year. The world has been celebrating Christmas day on 25^th December every year since 336AD to correspond with the Roman Calendar, which was, at the time, Julian Calendar before we flipped over to the Gregorian Calendar. For 1,684 years, that date has always been Christmas, no matter what. The ideology of keeping the same date for Christmas when transitioning over hasn’t been for everyone. Although recognised by most countries, some Eastern Churches have kept the date exactly as it would appear in the Julian Calendar, meaning they celebrate Christmas on January 7^th. Same celebration, different date. This brings forward an example of fluidity when it comes to what’s associated with a single date of any given year. Taking my birthday into account, if I were to celebrate it according to the Julian Calendar, it’ll be on 17/09/2020 – a Thursday – a difference of 11 days. When England adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1745, Wednesday 2^nd September was followed by Thursday, 14^th September. And with it being a leap year, it included that extra day in February, totalling the number of days in that year to 355.

Leap years happen every four years, and it always occurs on February 29^th. The reason why we do this is to synchronise our calendars with the solar calendar – the time it takes for our planet to orbit the sun. What we’ve done is rounded to the nearest day, when it actually takes 365¼ days to fully orbit the sun, hence why the leap year occurs every 4 years. If we never inserted the leap year since the beginning of the Gregorian Calendar, today’s date would not be 04/05/2020, but instead 17/08/2020, which is a 105-day difference.

Staying with calendars, this world is full of them – past and present, each one displaying their own timeframe. One of the most famous in recent history is the Mayan calendar, which caused quite a phenomenon across the world. The Mayan calendar dates back to the 5^th century BCE, but some documents state that it wasn’t the Mayans who invented it, but the same system was used in pre-Columbia Central America, which notably predated the Maya. However, the Mayan’s adopted it, made it their own, and used it to calculate dates long into the future. As time went on and many calendars passed, changing the date to this and that, the day that was calculated for the Mayan calendar to end changed, too. It was calculated to end on 21/12/2012, 11:11AM, which inspired many to believe that was when the world would end. There have been many doomsday predictions throughout history, but none have had a film about it. Called “2012”, it’s about the end of the world. 21/12/2012 caused the world to be in hysterics; total panic, even seeing people build shelters to protect themselves from the “inevitable” end.

A date can be significant in lots of ways, whether for novelty reasons such as your wedding anniversary, sharing your first kiss, and/or from the perspective of an expectant mother a date can be when your baby is due, and whilst the first two are fixed and have some powerful connection (the third is technically a guess made by professionals because it is common for babies to be late, setting a new due date, subsequently a new birthday for the baby).

On the milder side of the spectrum, a date can be concrete because it’s the day your boss has set to have that incredibly important meeting. You’re expected to follow the Gregorian Calendar when planning for that meeting – you can’t state the reason for why you never showed because you’re following the Julian Calendar before leap years, setting the date of your boss’s meeting 105 days later. A date can be set for a feature film to release either in the cinema or on DVD, and the fans are stating they simply cannot wait for that date to come around. The same can be said about a booked holiday – once it’s booked, you’re counting down the days until you can run out of work and jump on that plane.

Sticking with the novelty, there are certain patterns that have been observed over the years, one in particular which has no ended and we won’t be seeing again in our lifetime. When we hit the 2001s, 01/01/01 – which would also be a bank holiday as it’s celebrated as New Year’s Day – has just enough uniqueness about it which those who are born on that day, or something else special happened, it feels different. My son, Antony, was born 05/05/1994. That meant on his 11^th birthday, it was 05/05/05, something I know he would be happy about, as it’s a truly unique birthday. Sure, it was celebrated by many millions more as well, but being a part of that crowd should be recognised for what it was. This pattern lasted until 12/12/12, which was the very day my son passed his driving test, and another example of a novelty date. He has said he’ll never forget when he passed his test, because of that pattern. His world changed around him on that day, signifying that date to be something special to him as well.

Sadly, most of us would be seeing when the pattern begins anew, with 01/01/2101. However, those who are born today would be 81 years old, so more than likely can acknowledge it. That pattern would continue until ending with 12/12/2112, until restarting once again with 01/01/2201, and you get the idea. That is if we don’t switch over to another style of calendar beforehand, which is probably highly unlikely considering this Gregorian Calendar does work and have been working for hundreds of years.

So, to answer this article’s title question; what’s in a date? Well, first we must decide which calendar to use before we start putting some meaning on top of them, but since a good chunk of the world uses the Gregorian Calendar, it’s safe to say the following: there are some fixed meanings and some fluid meanings, but technically speaking a date can contain whatever we want, and certainly are more than just numbers.