Cobol - Calendars

Author

Calendars

Howard Brazee

2004-08-12, 8:55 am

Just curious - has anybody here worked with CoBOL and other calendars? Any
interesting stories to tell about it?

Howard Brazee

2004-08-12, 8:55 am

On 6-Aug-2004, l.willms@jpberlin.de (Lueko Willms) wrote:

> What do you mean by "other calenders"? I guess not that you think
> COBOL is a calendar, do you? You are rather thinking of the Julian
> calendar, Muslim, Jewish, Maya, Chinese, or other calendars, right?

Yep. Good thing the Japanese have gone from their calendar based upon the
emperor's reign.

I've seen some discussion about calculating Easter and some similar specialized
calendar needs - but even though the world has standardized on the western
(Christian based) calendar (not to mention 24 hour clock), I can see a need for
some shops to default to, say the Muslim calendar. Maybe it's a moot point -
the world calendar dominates for business - and only specialized nooks want
something different.

> With FUNCTION INTEGER-OF-DATE or INTEGER-OF-DAY you get a fixed day
> number with an epoch of January 1, 1601, Gregorian Calendar.
>
> Starting with that fixed day number, it is easy to use all
> algorithms presented in the book "Calendrical Calculations" by Edward
> M. Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz, just adding their fixed day number
> R.D. (for Rata Die) which is based on an epoch of an hypothetical
> January 1, 1, extrapolating the Gregorian calendar backwards.

Lueko Willms

2004-08-12, 8:55 am

.. Am 06.08.04
schrieb howard@brazee.net (Howard Brazee)
auf /COMP/LANG/COBOL
in cf030e$a16$1@peabody.colorado.edu
ueber Calendars

HB> Just curious - has anybody here worked with CoBOL and other
HB> calendars?

What do you mean by "other calenders"? I guess not that you think
COBOL is a calendar, do you? You are rather thinking of the Julian
calendar, Muslim, Jewish, Maya, Chinese, or other calendars, right?

With FUNCTION INTEGER-OF-DATE or INTEGER-OF-DAY you get a fixed day
number with an epoch of January 1, 1601, Gregorian Calendar.

Starting with that fixed day number, it is easy to use all
algorithms presented in the book "Calendrical Calculations" by Edward
M. Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz, just adding their fixed day number
R.D. (for Rata Die) which is based on an epoch of an hypothetical
January 1, 1, extrapolating the Gregorian calendar backwards.

But, actual experiences, I have not.

Yours,
Lüko Willms http://www.mlwerke.de
/--------- L.WILLMS@jpberlin.de -- Alle Rechte vorbehalten --

"Die Arbeit in weißer Haut kann sich nicht dort emanzipieren, wo sie
in schwarzer Haut gebrandmarkt wird." - Karl Marx 12.11.1866

Chuck Stevens

2004-08-12, 8:55 am

Extrapolating backwards from Gregorian Date January 1, 1601 to Gregorian
Date January 1, 1 is not entirely straightforward. In the Gregorian
calendar the period October 5, 1582 through October 14, 1582 simply did not
exist, and October 15, 1582 in the Gregorian calendar is October 5, 1582 in
the Julian calendar.

This is complicated by the facts that while the Gregorian calendar was
adopted early in Europe, the Julian calendar prevailed for some time in
England and the USA, and the year changed in England on March 15 in England
and on January 1 elsewhere. 11 February 1672 in England was 21 February
1673 on the Continent; adoption of the Gregorian calendar in England in 1752
led to the omission (by decree) of September 3 through September 13 in that
year.

Then there's also the problem of calculating backwards from a starting
Gregorian date to before the omission of those days in October. If I
understand this correctly, October 13, 1582 is a valid "Gregorian proleptic"
date.

I'm pretty sure these difficulties contributed to the decisions that
"integer date form" is defined in terms of a *starting* date of 1/1/1601 and
the arguments to the date-of-integer and day-of-integer functions are
required to be *positive* in the 2002 standard. COBOL's intrinsic
functions aren't designed to support date values from before Gregorian Date
January 1, 1601; you've pretty much got to write your own stuff for
comparison of such dates.

-Chuck Stevens

"Lueko Willms" <l.willms@jpberlin.de> wrote in message
news:9EKpPh29flB@jpberlin-l.willms.jpberlin.de...
> . Am 06.08.04
> schrieb howard@brazee.net (Howard Brazee)
> auf /COMP/LANG/COBOL
> in cf030e$a16$1@peabody.colorado.edu
> ueber Calendars
>
> HB> Just curious - has anybody here worked with CoBOL and other
> HB> calendars?
>
> What do you mean by "other calenders"? I guess not that you think
> COBOL is a calendar, do you? You are rather thinking of the Julian
> calendar, Muslim, Jewish, Maya, Chinese, or other calendars, right?
>
> With FUNCTION INTEGER-OF-DATE or INTEGER-OF-DAY you get a fixed day
> number with an epoch of January 1, 1601, Gregorian Calendar.
>
> Starting with that fixed day number, it is easy to use all
> algorithms presented in the book "Calendrical Calculations" by Edward
> M. Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz, just adding their fixed day number
> R.D. (for Rata Die) which is based on an epoch of an hypothetical
> January 1, 1, extrapolating the Gregorian calendar backwards.
>
>
> But, actual experiences, I have not.
>
>
> Yours,
> Lüko Willms http://www.mlwerke.de
> /--------- L.WILLMS@jpberlin.de -- Alle Rechte vorbehalten --
>
> "Die Arbeit in weißer Haut kann sich nicht dort emanzipieren, wo sie
> in schwarzer Haut gebrandmarkt wird." - Karl Marx 12.11.1866

Chuck Stevens

2004-08-13, 3:55 pm

ISO 8601 doesn't seem to specify anything about "other calendars", but
ISO/IEC 9945-2 apparently does, and t_fmt and d_fmt as they relate to
locale-dates from that standard are explicitly accounted for in the current
COBOL standard (ISO/IEC 1989:2002 pages 64-65, 8.2, Locales).

Stated a different way, I haven't personally worked with "other calendars",
but the mechanisms are certainly there in standard COBOL to do so.

-Chuck Stevens

"Howard Brazee" <howard@brazee.net> wrote in message
news:cf030e$a16$1@peabody.colorado.edu...
> Just curious - has anybody here worked with CoBOL and other calendars?
Any
> interesting stories to tell about it?

docdwarf@panix.com

2004-08-14, 3:55 am

In article <10h871i62mdur18@corp.supernews.com>,
Walter Murray <wmurray@midtown.net> wrote:
><docdwarf@panix.com> wrote:
>1752
>that
>
>Indeed! Consider the plight of the common laborer in England. He was paid
>by the day, but his landlord expected a full month's rent for September.
>The disruption would ripple through the whole economy. The act that
>mandated the change from Old Style to New Style dates tried to address a lot
>of these things, but there were still inequities.

Consider the plight of the Olde-Tyme grammar-school student in the United
States of America. It was easy to remember that George Washington was
born in the year of (square root of three) times 1000... but was it
February 11 or February 22?

>
>The really weird thing, to me, was that New Year's Day used to come on March
>25. So, for example, using the old calendar, the day after March 24, 1720,
>was March 25, 1721. That would add an extra little twist to a date
>calculation routine, wouldn't it?!

I recall, decades back, reading a collection of short stories by Keith
Laumer about interrestrial relations which featured a character named
Jamie Retief. In one tale there was an attempt to extort something from
the diplomatic corps under the guise that it was a local holiday, 'Double
Gift Tuesday'. When Retief pointed out that the local
leader/priest/general had mentioned that yesterday was 'double-gift
Tuesday' the creature flustered/blustered/sputtered 'Calendar Reform! Long
overdue, now is a *w

* of double-gift Tuesdays!'

Now in our days of Modern Time it seems as though there's a pretty good
grip on the relationship folks would like to see between the Heavenly Bowl
above and the pieces of paper torn of a series of one-panel cartoons
below; there hasn't been a calendar 'crisis' in a goodly long while... I
try to keep the memory of such things alive, though, by conversations
like:

'Well... it's Monday again.'

'Aye, happens every w

around this time, too... and a Good Thing it is,
or else I'd have to rewrite all my date routines.'

DD

Chuck Stevens

2004-08-14, 8:55 pm

"Richard" <riplin@Azonic.co.nz> wrote in message
news:217e491a.0408102245.3099f602@posting.google.com...

> The carolling tradition, which is of pagan origin, lived on up to this
> century. Especially in the south-western parts of Finland, the songs
> performed by carolling young men included Tapanin virsi. The song
> remained part of the Boxing Day (Feast of St Stephen) ceremony: young
> men went from house to house, one dressed as Tapani in a straw suit,
> others as Christmas bears, billy goats or cranes. They sang and danced
> Tapanin virsi, ending with a request for beer and food for their own
> feast.

Interesting point. The earliest historical date I can find for Finland is
the first Finnish cru

e in 1155, and one of the leaders of this Cru

e
was an English bishop named Henry, later apparently canonized and made the
patron saint of Finland (his companion Erik is the patron saint of Sweden).
Henry was killed in 1156, so it's unlikely he took the custom back to
England from Finland, and if he was bent on *Christianizing* Finland he
would hardly be likely to *introduce* fundamentally pagan practices.

The Scandinavians that seemed to "intermix" with the English during the Dark
Ages seemed to be speakers of Germanic languages, whereas what we now know
as south-west Finland spoke a member of the Finno-Ugric group, which isn't
even part of the Indo-European family.

Did this custom evolve *entirely* independently in Finland and England, or
was it borrowed by one from the other, and if the latter, in which
direction?

Stated a different way, is there *a* caroling tradition, or are there
*multiple* caroling traditions that happen to resemble each other?

-Chuck Stevens

Howard Brazee

2004-08-15, 3:55 am

On 9-Aug-2004, robert.deletethis@wagner.net (Robert Wagner) wrote:

> The enlightened Saudi Arabia is an exception. Since 1999 it has used the
> calculated position of the moon rather than relying on observation. In other
> Gulf countries, it's not possible to print next year's, or even next month's,
> calendar in advance.

A few years ago, Saudi Arabia set their clocks by the sun, instead of using an
offset of Zulu time. Is that still the case?

Chuck Stevens

2004-08-15, 3:55 am

<docdwarf@panix.com> wrote in message news:cf2i88$cbk$1@panix5.panix.com...

> Now in our days of Modern Time it seems as though there's a pretty good
> grip on the relationship folks would like to see between the Heavenly Bowl
> above and the pieces of paper torn of a series of one-panel cartoons
> below; there hasn't been a calendar 'crisis' in a goodly long while...

Ahh. You missed all the discussions at J4 about what happens in the new
time-conversion functions when the leap-second directive with the ON phrase
is in effect, and whether UCT was 23:59:60 or 00:00:00 (or, for that matter,
24:00:00) when it was 01:00:00 in Paris. And then there's the whole
offset-from-UCT contoversy, in which the local governments decide the offset
(all of China, for example, is in the same time zone) and any local despot
is free to decide what local time should be!

- Chuck Stevens

Chuck Stevens

2004-08-15, 3:55 am

Robert Wagner write:

<< ... The Russian Orthodox Church still uses Julian, which explains why
Christmas in Russia is celebrated on Jan 7. ... >>

According to articles I've read -- I don't offhand remember whether it was
in Bible Review or Biblical Archaeology Review -- there is strong evidence
that the tradition of Christmas as January 7 significantly predates the
calendar shift (and perhaps even the Great Eastern Schism itself).

And I believe this tradition is common, and perhaps even conventional,
throughout the Orthodox Communion, not limited merely to the Autocephalous
Church of Russia.

-Chuck Stevens

Lueko Willms

2004-08-15, 3:55 am

repost via Google, since my ISP is neglecting Netnews
Originally written and posted on Tuesday, 10.08.2004

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

.. Am 06.08.04
schrieb howard@brazee.net (Howard Brazee)
bei /COMP/LANG/COBOL
in cf0llk$d$1@peabody.colorado.edu
ueber Re: Calendars
[color=darkred]

HB> Yep. Good thing the Japanese have gone from their calendar based
HB> upon the emperor's reign.

Did they? When? The last time I was in Japan (I was there one
time), they would count the years as years of the current Tenno's time
of reign. But it was used side by side with the Gregorian years.

HB> I've seen some discussion about calculating Easter and some similar
HB> specialized calendar needs

Calculating Easter is important because that is the fixed base for
all moveable Christian holidays like Pentecoste etc which are in a
fixed offset of days from Easter; so in order to calculate working
days and holidays one has to know Easter.

Knowing the date of Orthodox Christian Easter or of Jewish holidays
is maybe a little bit more specialized, also knowing when Ramadan is
probably starting and ending, all this can be important depending on
what community and what relations is being served by your computing
center.

Yours,
Lüko Willms http://www.mlwerke.de
/--------- L.WILLMS@jpberlin.de -- Alle Rechte vorbehalten --

Richard

2004-08-15, 8:55 am

"Chuck Stevens" <charles.stevens@unisys.com> wrote

> According to articles I've read -- I don't offhand remember whether it was
> in Bible Review or Biblical Archaeology Review -- there is strong evidence
> that the tradition of Christmas as January 7 significantly predates the
> calendar shift (and perhaps even the Great Eastern Schism itself).

Christianity took over existing festivals and celebrations and renamed
them and/or reinvented them for its own purposes. Easter, for
example, is the spring festival of the Godess of Fertility - hence
eggs and rabbits which have no christian connection at all.

In northern and western europe, a few days after the Solstace, after
it had been detected and preparations done, the need for the supplies
that will last to the harvest could be calculated and the excess
eaten. The midwinter feast in celebration of the return of the sun,
was corrupted to the 'son'.

In southern europe this was less important and the christians had to
take over different local ceremonies which is why christmas is quite
different in orthodox churches and easter is more important.

Lueko Willms

2004-08-15, 8:55 am

────────────────────────────────────
472;────────────────────&
9472;──────────────────────
This is now the fiouth try, this time through Google, since my ISP is
really careless about Netnews

I just noted that this message by me of Saturday is still not
available on Google. So I guess my Netnews ISP has again lost a
message, and I am sending it out again

This is now the third try, and I apologise in case there would
really be duplicates. The fact is, that my Netnews provider does not
care any more at all about providing Netnews and is now very sloppy
about the quality of his service.

------------------ schnapp --------------------------------

.. Am 06.08.04
schrieb charles.stevens@unisys.com (Chuck Stevens)
bei /COMP/LANG/COBOL
in cf0qvv$1a2h$1@si05.rsvl.unisys.com
ueber Re: Calendars

CS> Extrapolating backwards from Gregorian Date January 1, 1601 to
CS> Gregorian Date January 1, 1 is not entirely straightforward. In
the
CS> Gregorian calendar the period October 5, 1582 through October 14,
CS> 1582 simply did not exist, and October 15, 1582 in the Gregorian
CS> calendar is October 5, 1582 in the Julian calendar.

Sure, it does not make sense to use the Gregorian calendar as Day,
Month, Year where and when it was not valid. There is not even a sense
of using the Julian calendar before it was introduced by this monk in,
I think, the 7th century A.D.

The point is to have a fixed day number, counting days instead of
representing them as days in various cyclical entities, since using
such a fixed day number, one can calculate those representations in
various calendars.

The book which I mentioned, by Edward M. Reingold and NAchum
Dershowitz, "Calendrical Calculations" (Cambridge University Press;>
see http://www.calendarists.com) presents such formulae and
algorithms; it also comes with a CD-ROM where all these can be found
as LISP source code.

CS> I'm pretty sure these difficulties contributed to the decisions
that
CS> "integer date form" is defined in terms of a starting date of
CS> 1/1/1601 and the arguments to the date-of-integer and
day-of-integer
CS> functions are required to be positive in the 2002 standard.

Others, like some spreadsheet programs, use a date in 1900 as day 1
for their fixed day numbers. Astronomers use the Julian day number,
the number of that day within a certain astronomical cycle of 7980
years, and this Julian day number for today is 2'453'225, well
actually only after noon, since the Julian day is counted from noon to
noon, and not from midnight to midnight.

CS> COBOL's intrinsic functions aren't designed to support date values
CS> from before Gregorian Date January 1, 1601; you've pretty much got
to
CS> write your own stuff for comparison of such dates.

That's OK since the built-in functions in COBOL only support the
Gregorian calendar.

Reingold and Dershowitz wanted to show algorithms for all known
calendars, wanted to avoid negative numbers for large parts of our
recorded history, use less digits than the Julian day number, and use
a sensible date as epoch, i.e. as day number 1. So they used the
fictional January 1, year 1. All other fixed day numbers can be
derived from it by simple addition or subtraction.

Today's R.D. is 731'800. The R.D. fixed day number for the epoch of
the COBOL serial day number is 584'755; I understand that this January
1, 1601 Gregorian is serial day number 1 for COBOL; thus one would
only have to add 584'754 to it, and can then use the algorithms
presented by Reingold and Dershowitz without further changes.

Today's COBOL serial day number would be 147'046, right?

[the original message was written on Saturday, August 7 ]]

Yours,
Lüko Willms http://www.mlwerke.de
/--------- L.WILLMS@jpberlin.de -- Alle Rechte vorbehalten --

"Das Volk, das ein anderes Volk unterjocht, schmiedet seine eigenen
Ketten." - Karl Marx (1. Januar
1870)

Lueko Willms

2004-08-15, 8:55 am

... repost via Google, since my ISP is neglecting Netnews ...
..... original message written on Tuesday, Aug 10 ......

.. Am 10.08.04
schrieb robert.deletethis@wagner.net (Robert Wagner)
bei /COMP/LANG/COBOL
in 41186397.59741450@news.optonline.net
ueber Re: Calendars

RW> In the West, Christmas lasted from December 25 through January 5
RW> followed by gift opening Epiphany on January 6. In the Orthodox East,
RW> Christmas lasted from January 7 (December 25 Julian) thru January 18
RW> followed by gift opening Theophany on January 19.

This reminds me of the Coptic-Ethiopian and the old Persian, i.e.
Jalali calendar which solved the problem of the irregularities of the
solar and lunar cylces and the difficulties of dividing the solar year
into cycles of days related to the moon cycle in a very simple way:

they had 12 months of equal length, namely 30 days each, plus an
extra period of 5 extra days at the end of the year. In a leap year,
one could simply add 1 extra day to this special period.

I would like this calendar to be reintroduced.

Yours,
Lüko Willms http://www.mlwerke.de
/--------- L.WILLMS@jpberlin.de -- Alle Rechte vorbehalten --

Howard Brazee

2004-08-15, 3:55 pm

On 12-Aug-2004, mwojcik@newsguy.com (Michael Wojcik) wrote:

>
> When I was there in 1996, plenty of people I talked to still used
> the Imperial calendar in speech and informal writing. I think all
> of the (relatively few) official documents I saw used the Gregorian.

Which indicates that there may be a few programming applications using the old
calendar. But Japanese business isn't likely to use it much in its data
processing needs anymore.

Michael Wojcik

2004-08-15, 3:55 pm

In article <7c607d81.0408112233.1775abda@posting.google.com>, L.Willms@jpberlin.de (Lueko Willms) writes:
> schrieb howard@brazee.net (Howard Brazee)
>
> HB> Yep. Good thing the Japanese have gone from their calendar based
> HB> upon the emperor's reign.
>
> Did they? When? The last time I was in Japan (I was there one
> time), they would count the years as years of the current Tenno's time
> of reign. But it was used side by side with the Gregorian years.

When I was there in 1996, plenty of people I talked to still used
the Imperial calendar in speech and informal writing. I think all
of the (relatively few) official documents I saw used the Gregorian.

--
Michael Wojcik michael.wojcik@microfocus.com

Proverbs for Paranoids, 2: The innocence of the creatures is in inverse
proportion to the immorality of the Master. -- Thomas Pynchon

Chuck Stevens

2004-08-16, 3:55 am

"Robert Wagner" <robert.deletethis@wagner.net> wrote in message
news:41186397.59741450@news.optonline.net...

> We in the West think celebrating Christmas is synonymous with opening
gifts.

Not clear that that's been a universal custom since apostolic days, however.

> Historically, Christ's birth and the 'revelation' that he was divine were
two
> different events and holidays.

In some societies. Some orthodox claim that the *nativity* wasn't
originally celebrated at all, Theophany being much the more important
holiday, and the nativity commemoration evolving out of, and remaining
secondary to, that of Theophany.

> Traditionally, Christmas was a period of time rather than a single day,
hence
> the phrase 'twelve days of Christmas'.

Not universally.

> It began following Advent ...

Circular definition, applicable only to Western churches. Nota bene
"ad-venire", approximately "to arrive", "to come to [a place]". Defining
anything in terms of "Advent" dismisses the Orthodox tradition altogether,
and the Roman Catholic encyclopedia flatly describes Advent as being
celebrated *in the Western church*.

> and ended the
> day before Epiphany aka Theophany.

Later, in some locations, maybe.

> Christmas celebrated Christ's birth or
> nativity; Epiphany celebrated a visit by three wise 'kings' bearing gifts,
> therefore the day when we open gifts.

The first recorded celebrations of the Epiphany seem to be about
commemorating Jesus' *baptism*.

> In the West, Christmas lasted from December 25 through January 5 followed
by
> gift opening Epiphany on January 6.

In some cultures.

In the Orthodox East, Christmas lasted from
> January 7 (December 25 Julian) thru January 18 followed by gift opening
> Theophany on January 19.

In some Orthodox denominations.

> The problem was, some retailers and all individuals ended their fiscal
year in
> December.

??? Yeah, I bet Arthur Anderson was really after those merchants
supplying goods to the families of the Cru

ers to get their books closed
on time!

> It was untidy to have the orgy of materialism spilling over to the
> following year, so we fixed the commercial problem by moving gift-giving
to the
> first day of Christmas.

I was under the *distinct* impression that the "orgy of materialism" aspect
of Christmas was a phenomenon that had blossomed primarily in the last
couple of centuries. I don't think gift-giving, or its abuse, has been a
consistent practice throughout all of Christianity for the last two
millennia; in fact, I strongly suspect where it has been adopted in the East
it has been through imitation of the West, just as gift-giving at Chanukkah
is sometimes practiced in imitation of Christianity (the "Chanukkah bush"
being an even more egregious example of such imitation).
-Chuck Stevens

Chuck Stevens

2004-08-16, 3:55 am

"Richard" <riplin@Azonic.co.nz> wrote in message
news:217e491a.0408101506.20a4d2c@posting.google.com...

> The feast, the gift giving, carolling, the Yule logs, holly,
> mistletoe, decorated trees, the date of a couple of days after winter
> solstace were _ALL_ pre-christian and appropriated to be recast as if
> they had christian significance or even origin.

Moreover, among these, at least the Yule logs (Scandinavian) holly (English)
and decorated trees (German, and not particularly popular outside of that
culture until Prince Al set one up in 1841 for Vicky and the kids) are
decidedly Germanic customs.

Gift giving appears to have been a *Roman* custom absorbed from the feast of
Saturnalia, not necessarily widespread everywhere or particularly early, and
rationalized much later in the church because of the example of the Magi,
and later still because of the example of St. Nicholas.

All of these were *seriously* frowned upon by the early Church as of pagan
origin.

Caroling as a custom is *distinctly* English, but aside from its connections
with the medieval city waites, I'm not yet convinced it was fundamentally
pagan (as distinct from secular) in origin.

-Chuck Stevens

Donald Tees

2004-08-16, 8:55 am

Chuck Stevens wrote:
> "Richard" <riplin@Azonic.co.nz> wrote in message
> news:217e491a.0408102245.3099f602@posting.google.com...
>
>
>
>
> Interesting point. The earliest historical date I can find for Finland is
> the first Finnish cru

e in 1155, and one of the leaders of this Cru

e
> was an English bishop named Henry, later apparently canonized and made the
> patron saint of Finland (his companion Erik is the patron saint of Sweden).
> Henry was killed in 1156, so it's unlikely he took the custom back to
> England from Finland, and if he was bent on *Christianizing* Finland he
> would hardly be likely to *introduce* fundamentally pagan practices.
>
> The Scandinavians that seemed to "intermix" with the English during the Dark
> Ages seemed to be speakers of Germanic languages, whereas what we now know
> as south-west Finland spoke a member of the Finno-Ugric group, which isn't
> even part of the Indo-European family.
>
> Did this custom evolve *entirely* independently in Finland and England, or
> was it borrowed by one from the other, and if the latter, in which
> direction?
>
> Stated a different way, is there *a* caroling tradition, or are there
> *multiple* caroling traditions that happen to resemble each other?
>
> -Chuck Stevens
>
>

I suspect that singing for dinner is pre-historic, let alone
pre-christian. The earliest musical instrument (known) is dated at
50,000 years.

Donald <-- has even gotten drunk and started singing himself ...

Richard

2004-08-17, 3:55 pm

"Chuck Stevens" <charles.stevens@unisys.com> wrote

> Caroling as a custom is *distinctly* English, but aside from its connections
> with the medieval city waites, I'm not yet convinced it was fundamentally
> pagan (as distinct from secular) in origin.

You may think so, but it can be found as equally traditional in other
countries including:

"""
The carolling tradition, which is of pagan origin, lived on up to this
century. Especially in the south-western parts of Finland, the songs
performed by carolling young men included Tapanin virsi. The song
remained part of the Boxing Day (Feast of St Stephen) ceremony: young
men went from house to house, one dressed as Tapani in a straw suit,
others as Christmas bears, billy goats or cranes. They sang and danced
Tapanin virsi, ending with a request for beer and food for their own
feast.
"""

E P Chandler

2004-08-17, 3:55 pm

riplin@Azonic.co.nz (Richard) wrote:

> Christianity took over existing festivals and celebrations and renamed
> them and/or reinvented them for its own purposes.

In some parts of the world, the Roman Catholic Church has been *very*
adaptable to local customs and traditions. Mexico is a good example.
There are a number of local saints plus "Day of the Dead" takes place
on All Saint's Day. In Brazil, New Year celebrations include floating
offerings to "Imeja" out to sea.

Of course cultural evolution is ongoing and is really quite
fascinating. In years past the local PBS station ran TV college
courses in the early morning. One of these was a series on
anthropology. A particular episode featured the inhabitants of the
Trobriand islands (well known from the work of Branislaw Malinowski).

1. When the British took over, they introduced the locals to cricket.
Yearly cricket matches have replaced (partly ritualistic) warfare
between clans.

2. Some of the elaborate dances involved in the ceremonies that take
place before the games resemble airplanes flying and landing - a
reference to the "cargo cults" that developed during WWII.

3. In spite of attempts by missionaries to wipe it out, the islanders
retained extremely suggestive dances which included rhythmic pelvic
movements and chants which were somewhat euphemisticly translated to
"I like .... my thing".

[Wondering what lasting imprint COBOL will leave on *our* culture?]

Lueko Willms

2004-08-18, 3:55 am

Lueko Willms

2004-08-18, 3:55 am

Lueko Willms

2004-08-18, 3:55 am

docdwarf@panix.com

2004-08-18, 3:55 am

In article <7c607d81.0408112244.4e2b0192@posting.google.com>,
Lueko Willms <L.Willms@jpberlin.de> wrote:

[snip]

> This reminds me of the Coptic-Ethiopian and the old Persian, i.e.
>Jalali calendar which solved the problem of the irregularities of the
>solar and lunar cylces and the difficulties of dividing the solar year
>into cycles of days related to the moon cycle in a very simple way:
>
> they had 12 months of equal length, namely 30 days each, plus an
>extra period of 5 extra days at the end of the year. In a leap year,
>one could simply add 1 extra day to this special period.

This smells *very* familiar... wasn't it used in Ancient Egypt, as well,
with the five days being some sort of Royal Holiday?

>
> I would like this calendar to be reintroduced.

Hmmmmm... careful about what Old Customs you bring back; by their
behaviors it might seem that many of our Ruling Families are already
marrying their sisters.

DD

Howard Brazee

2004-08-18, 3:55 am

Howard Brazee

2004-08-18, 3:55 pm

I've also seen calculating interest based upon days a bank is open. Which
means a table of bank holidays is needed.

William M. Klein

2004-08-26, 3:55 pm

Do translate an "integer-type" date to a Japanese or Chinese era (yes, I'm
serious), if you have LE callable services, check out the CEEDATE callable
service. See:

http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-...CEEA3140/3.5.22

and

http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-...KS/CEEA3140/B.0

and look for the CCCC or JJJJ "masks" (This latter page also shows how you can
get a month in Roman numerals - and a variety of other options).

--
Bill Klein
wmklein <at> ix.netcom.com
"Howard Brazee" <howard@brazee.net> wrote in message
news:cf0llk$d$1@peabody.colorado.edu...
>
> On 6-Aug-2004, l.willms@jpberlin.de (Lueko Willms) wrote:
>
>
> Yep. Good thing the Japanese have gone from their calendar based upon the
> emperor's reign.
>
> I've seen some discussion about calculating Easter and some similar
specialized
> calendar needs - but even though the world has standardized on the western
> (Christian based) calendar (not to mention 24 hour clock), I can see a need
for[color=darkred]
> some shops to default to, say the Muslim calendar. Maybe it's a moot point -
> the world calendar dominates for business - and only specialized nooks want
> something different.
>

William M. Klein

2004-08-31, 3:55 pm

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