From: benlizro@ihug.co.nz   
      
   On 3/02/2025 3:24 p.m., Steve Hayes wrote:   
   > On Mon, 3 Feb 2025 01:34:19 +0000, HenHanna  wrote:   
   >   
   >> St. Brigid's Day, celebrated on February 1st, marks the beginning of   
   >> spring in Ireland and honors St. Brigid, one of Ireland's patron saints.   
   >   
   > There seems to be a discrepancy in the dates between the subject line   
   > and the body.   
   >   
   > Is there a newsgroup for discussing chronology, which seems to cause a   
   > lot of confusion?   
   >   
      
   If there is, I don't want to know about it.   
      
   "Principal feast: 1 February", says the OxDic of Saints, which I   
   consider authoritative. However, saints' days, like people's birthdays,   
   often get pushed around or overlain to fit the requirements of modern   
   bureaucratic states. Wikipedia tells us: "The public holiday is observed   
   on the first Monday of February, except for years where 1 February   
   happens to fall on a Friday, in which case the holiday is observed on   
   that Friday instead."   
   So, this year, St Brigid's day was observed by various people on the   
   Saturday; then they got a day off work on the Monday. A lot of the   
   holidays on my calendar have an extra day like that, e.g. in Japan,   
   23 February - Emperor's Birthday   
   24 February (Monday) - Emperor's Birthday Holiday   
      
      
      
   I forgot to add an ObSciLang about "Imbolc".   
      
   Irish pronunciation:  [ə ˈmˠɔlˠəɡ]  (Wiki)   
      
   For those who aren't up to that: It's an old Gaelic festival, but   
   there's not a lot of agreement about how old, or what it was   
   celebrating. For more discussion see Wiki.   
      
   Etymology: The etymology of Imbolc or Imbolg is unclear. A common   
   explanation is that it comes from the Old Irish i mbolc (Modern Irish: i   
   mbolg), meaning 'in the belly', and refers to the pregnancy of ewes at   
   this time of year. Joseph Vendryes linked it to the Old Irish verb   
   folcaim, 'to wash/cleanse oneself'. He suggested that it referred to a   
   ritual cleansing. Eric P. Hamp derives it from a Proto-Indo-European   
   root meaning both 'milk' and 'cleansing'. Professor Alan Ward derives it   
   from the Proto-Celtic *embibolgon, 'budding'. The early 10th century   
   Cormac's Glossary has an entry for Oímelc, calling it the beginning of   
   spring and deriving it from oí-melg ('ewe milk'), explaining it as "the   
   time that sheep's milk comes". However, linguists believe this is the   
   writer's respelling of the word to give it an understandable etymology.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)