Calendar Changes

[KENNETH HOUGHTON]

     Somehow, calling it "ridiculous behaviour" to object when one is 
     dunned a full month's rent for 19 days--because "the calendar needs to 
     be adjusted"--belies whether one is of the privileged class (e.g., 
     George Washington, who adjusted his birthdate retroactively from Feb 
     11, 1732, to Feb 22nd of that year) or the working, mercantile class 
     (to whom rebates weren't given and earnings were reduced).


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: RE: pynchon-l-digest V1 #674
Author:  Greg Montalbano <greg.montalbano at ucop.edu> at dbnaccip
Date:    7/1/97 8:18 AM


Erik Burns, on the 11 days:
     
>This confusion arose because people found it easier to think in the 
>"nominal" terms they were used to - in which one day of the month follows 
>another in numerical order - rather than recognizing the underlying reality 
>of what "days" measure, namely the passage of time."
>
>To react like this may seem ridiculous with hindsight..."
     
Actually, you can view similar "ridiculous" behavior even today, in the 
continuing brouhaha over Daylight Savings Time ("It ain't natural", "The 
cows don't like it").