A Tisket-Tasket Podcast

Episode 35 - 30 Days Hath September

Gina Zimbardi Season 1 Episode 35

In this delightful episode of the A Tisket-Tasket Podcast, host Gina takes us on a captivating journey through the history and significance of the timeless nursery rhyme, "30 Days Hath September." Discover the various versions of this mnemonic marvel that has helped generations remember the lengths of each month. From the classic rhyming version to the ingenious knuckle mnemonic, Gina unravels the charm of this age-old rhyme. With a fascinating look into its historical roots, you'll learn how this rhyme has been an integral part of our lives for centuries. Join the conversation on the enduring value of nursery rhymes and their role in everyday life. Don't miss out on the fun and insightful explorations of nursery rhyme culture on the A Tisket-Tasket Podcast. Learn how you can support Gina and her endeavors on her website at https://atiskettasketpodcast.com/. #NurseryRhymes #History #30DaysHathSeptember #Mnemonic #Podcast

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Microphone (G733 Gaming Headset):

Hello and welcome to a task podcast. I'm your host, Gina. And today we're going to be talking about the nursery rhyme slash learning device. 30 days have September. Before we get started. I just wanted to say, check out my website with the link in the description below. To see how you can help me get out to Portland, Oregon, to speak at the American folklore conference. At the beginning of November this year, I really need your help to get out there. It'll help ease the passage as far as finances, and I could use your help. So again, please check out my website below to see how you. Can help me do what I love.

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Microphone (G733 Gaming Headset)-2:

As I sat down to plan out the rest of my year, I had the sudden realization, but it is already the middle of September. This year has gone by so quickly. And. I just kind of had to sit and worry for a minute and to think about all I've done this year. But in any case, I was thinking about the old rhyme 30 days have September. Now, technically, I don't know if you would count this as a nursery rhyme, although it has appeared in nursery rhyme publications, it doesn't have a route folk song index number, but I still wanted to cover it In my podcast because it actually has a much older history than I knew. And I learned about that earlier this year. So I wanted to talk about it. In this week's episode. 30 days has September. Has a couple of traditional ways of saying it. And the version of that I'm familiar with is as follows. 30 days has September, April, June, and November. All the rest have 31 say February at 28, but leap year coming once in four February then has one more. And alternative version goes 30 days has September, April, June, and November. All the rest of 31, except for February 28 days clear and 29 in each leap year. If you want the genome version, which makes no sense whatsoever in my head. It goes. 30 days has September, April, June, and November, all the rest of 31 say February, which has none that doesn't make sense. Don't go repeating that to anyone because February. Obviously has days, but for some odd reason what I repeat that in my head. That's how it goes. I don't know if it's just because I really don't like the month of February or it just like, it's automatic to me to know. February is a short month, but that's what goes on in my head. When I say it. In any case 30 days is a traditional pneumonic device. And pneumonic means it's a way in which you can easily. Devote things to memory or more easily remember, or kind of trick your brain into remembering things. And it's used specifically for months because people always have a hard time remembering. Okay. What month has 30 days? What month has 31 days? I know someone who missed a crucial interview because she forgot that. September. Has 30 days and not 31 days. In any case, it just gives you an idea of how to remember the days. So when I was talking to my husband about this he says that he remembers the number of days because of the knuckle pneumonic. And I actually had not heard about this pneumonic until very late in life. So if you hold up your hands in front of you making a fist and you start at your pinky on your left side, if your pinky knuckle is January and it's raised up, that means the month has 31 days. So January your first. Knuckle has 31 and it's risen your second indentation there. So between the knuckles, which is lower. Your second month, which is February. And that has less than 31 days. So 28 or 29. The third one, which is March, which is a knuckle. So it's raised up. Which is March, has 31 days the next, which would be April. Has less than 31 days and so forth. So if you count across your knuckles, you have January 31 February, less than March 31 April, less than. May 31 June, less than July 31. And then you, you go across from your thumb across to the next one. So August. Cast 31 September does not. October has 31. November does not. December has 31. So that's an additional pneumonic device. I am not a visual learner, so whenever I do it, I still screwed up. So for me, the rhyming version. Is much easier to remember. So that's what we're going to talk about today. And that's a very easy pneumonic device to remember the days of the month.

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This pneumonic device helps remember. The number of days and the months of the Julian in Georgia and calendars. And I guess it never occurred to me that this nursery rhyme is older because we've been using those calendars for Thousands of years now, which is really crazy to think about. When I was studying this week, I kind of got sucked down the rabbit hole of. Reading about time. But let's go ahead and listen to an audio version real quick of this very easy pneumonic device. When I was researching, I was sure I wasn't going to find any audio recordings, but I've proved myself wrong. And today we're going to go ahead and listen to a easy recording of this pneumonic device. And it is from the album poetry programs for children volume one. By Eleanor best shoe. And it is through CMS records and is from 1966. I love records from the sixties because you get this really. Clear transit Atlantic. Accent. And so you can very clearly hear what decade's from, but let's go ahead and listen real quick to. 30 days, half, September.

We enjoy poetry all the time, without thinking about it. Haven't you ever counted the days of the month, saying Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. All the rest have thirty one, except February alone, which has four and twenty four, till leap year gives it one day more.

Microphone (G733 Gaming Headset)-2:

Pretty neat. Right. I couldn't find another recording, but I thought this one would do the job just well and shows that this. Has been used in a number of years and is a favorite to teach young children about the days of the month. But let's go back to learning about the history of this. As I mentioned before, it doesn't have a red folk song index number, but this has been around since probably even before Elizabeth in times. Likely before the 15 hundreds. And just to let you guys know a little, a little bit about how. We measure time or days the this is from the history section of the Wikipedia article about this. I'm just gonna go ahead and read it because I thought it was interesting. The irregular length of months descends from the Roman calendar, which came to be adopted throughout Europe and then worldwide. The months of the Rome, original lunar calendar would have varied between 29 and 30 days, depending on the observation of the phases of the moon. Reforms credited to, to Romulus like they'll Romulus in Nuba, establish a set year of 12 fixed months. It's possibly under the influence. Pythagorean's in Southern Italy. Rune considered odd numbers, more lucky and set the links of the new months to 29 in 31 days. Part from the last month, February and it's inter calorie month. Marisa Donny's it's imperfect system in political manipulation of intercalation. Cause it to slip greatly under the alignment with the solar year. Which was known to consist of one force of 1,461 days, rather than days by the time of mitten in the fifth century, BC. Rather than adopt a new system, like the Egyptian calendar, which had 12 months of 30 days each in a set. Annual intercalary month of five days. Caesar aimed for his 46 BC reform to maintain as much continuity as possible with the old calendar. Ultimately Murcia Donnez was removed. The four existing 31 day months were maintained. February. It was left unchanged apart from leap years and the needed additional 10 days of the year were added to the 29 months to make them either 30 or 31 days long. By the Renaissance, the regularity of the resulting system had inspired Latin verses to remember the order of the long and short months. The first known published form appeared in 1488 edition of the Latin versus. An ADI NES. And I'm not going to read the Latin version cause I would just ruin it. But it's the same in Latin as what I just read in English and fun fact, this isn't just a pneumonic device in English when I was reading the ops. Addition in the Oxford English dictionary of nursery rhymes. They actually include that this is used in a couple of other different languages because it kind of rhymes the same. And the one I knew was Italian. Which kind of makes sense because when you think of The calendar from the Roman times and we have Latin. And we have a tie in based on Lenten. Therefore it kind of makes sense that Latin based languages would use this as a pneumonic device for their own languages. If you are an Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese speaker. Then chances are, you can use this pneumonic device quite easily to remember the days of the month. In 2001, the Welsh author, Roger Byron discovered an oldest English form of the poem written at the bottom of a page of St. Stay for February within a Latin manuscript in the British library's Harley and manuscripts. He dated the entry to 1425. So. You know about 25 years earlier, then the original Latin version, he found a older version and it was the same Latin version. Reading 30 days have November, April, June, and September or 28 is, but one and the remnant 30 and one. If you're curious, the first published English version. Appeared in Richard Grafton's abridgment of Chronicles of England in 1562 as a rule to know how many days. Every month in the year has, and I translated that from middle English. September in November, have identical rhyme. And are this politically interchangeable? The early version Senator to favorite November? And as late as 1891, it was being given as the more common form of the rhyme. In some parts of the United States. It is less common now in September variants, have a long history as well. And manuscript copy of the verse from 15 55 runs. 30 days has September, April, June, and November. And the rest of 31, except February loan in that has 28 days clear in 29 and the leap year. So that's from 15, 15 5. And so sometimes I think it's really hard to think about. History and context. And so for me, The way I think about it is Shakespeare, because pretty much anyone who can read. Knows the name Shakespeare. I was alive in the year 1500. And so that really helps me kind of orient myself in time. To think about how long ago things were. And so this was. A poem when Shakespeare was alive, that we still use today. To remember our months and not for me is yet another reason why these nursery rhymes or rhymes new pneumonic devices. Are just absolutely brilliant and amazing and awesome to study because. Shakespeare as much as I love Shakespeare isn't a daily read. Right? And for most part people don't experience Shakespeare outside of their formal education. But these nursery rhymes are. Part of informal. Education and oral tradition and just everyday life. And that's why I find it so fascinating. Because this is something that some. Like you can imagine a baker who selling his or her wares. In the early 16th century, maybe mumbling to themselves, trying to remember. If this month has 30 or 31 days, and we can still see that today. It's just so crazy. I love it.

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Microphone (G733 Gaming Headset)-2:

So apparently according to the opiate opiate, another version, which appeared in 1844, says 30 days has September, April, June in November, all the rest of 31, except Febru airy alone, which for some odd reason, February is broken out. I think maybe to remember, remember that February has an R after the F E B. Which has 28 named Moore has 29 1 in four. Another English version from before 1574 is found in a manuscript among the Moston papers, held at the national library of Wales. And various appear throughout Europe. We've pedia does include the Italian form, which is Johnny. Our November. June Jo in September eight, D Vint. Oh, no. on. So, as you can tell from my butcher to Italian, you can still tell that it rhymes. So I encourage you. If you want to speak a different language, learn this new nut pneumonic device. In the language of your choice. Now frequently I talk about kind of Poetry itself for like what verse. Type or what kind of a poetic meter these nursery rhymes have. And this one is considered a dog roll nursery rhyme. And I believe I've said the word dog before, but just to remind you Doggerel is poetry that is irregular in rhyme. And usually it's like because of comedic effect. And I talk a lot about that with like those clapping songs. But it can also mean that the verse has a monotonous rhyme. Or like cheaper, trivial. I don't know. I just think that. It's cheapening the fact that this is so useful, I feel like scholars are like, well, this isn't difficult enough. We'll have to call it a dog or a rhyme because it's not academic, enough. And that's like bull crap to me. I really like things that are useful in the everyday life. And I feel like Doggerel has like a negative meaning to it, but that's the type of poetic verse at this nursery rhyme Hass. In the London times, newspaper in 2011 author. Roger Bryan actually kind of he agrees with me. He said that because it's called a Doggerel nursery rhyme. It is kind of looked at, looked down upon. He says, quote, that it's one of the most popular and often repeated verses in the English language and probably the only 16th century poem. Most ordinary citizens know by heart. Also Groucho Marx agrees with this saying my favorite poem is the one that starts 30 day has to timber because it actually means something. But on the other hand, the unhelpfulness of such involved pneumonic has been mocked as an early 20th century parody, 30 days. Half September, but the rest, I can't remember. It continues to be taught in school. As children learn this calendar. But of course others use the knuckle pneumonic and said, So Wikipedia really drives hard from the opiod ope selection from the book. And that's why I kind of read it out loud today. But I really liked that people are continuing to talk about it, right? So we have the London times saying that this is still a really important nursery and we shouldn't mock it because it's not elegant in its verse. And we have comedians like Groucho Marx saying, you know, it's his favorite because it actually means something. And. Poetry. It doesn't have to mean nothing to be good. Which I know is a double negative. But for my listeners out there who perhaps are not poetry readers or not book readers. Don't let big, scary or flowery language scare you off. One of the reasons why I started this. Podcast is because nursery rhymes are just fun. They are. Low stress. They're easy to remember. Easy to repeat, easy to sing, easy to say. And they often have. Commonplace meaning the often often have purpose or sometimes they're just silly. Like the cow jumped over the moon. And I really love that dichotomy about this genre of literature is that you have the absurd, but you also have like really commonplace things like this one or Hickory Dickory dock, as I talked about, or London bridge or oranges and lemons, which I haven't even talked about yet. And so I know that this nursery, this episode, this week's episode is kind of short and late. But I still think it's important to note that not all pieces of literature have to have high meaning. And again, it's one of the reasons why I picked this one, just because it's so damn useful. And one that I repeat to myself all the time. When I'm trying to remember. When I'm scheduling appointments like, oh wait, the September has 30 days or 31 I can ever remember. And so this nursery. Nursery rhyme. That has been used. I mean, we know it's been written down since the 15th century. But probably has been used even older than that. Isn't incredibly important. One to our history. So I thought this was a cool one to include for this week's episode of Sysco task at podcast. And next week. Next week and the following weeks, I really want to focus on harvest theme nursery rhymes. And I'm trying to find Halloween or scary theme nursery rhymes for the month of October. I'm having difficult finding them. I spent a couple hours last week looking, so I'm curious to know if you have any suggestions, please email me, but that's what we have to look forward to. For the last couple of weeks, we talked about nursery rhymes, including Robbins. And believe it or not, I haven't even scratched the surface with those rhymes. So that is yet another topic that I'd like to come back to and explore further. But in any case, I've rambled enough. So I encourage you to please check in next week where I continue to talk about the weirdness of nursery rhymes.

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