365* New Words a Year [Merriam Webster] (Workman Publishing) 2/29/8: bissextile year
bissextile year n : a leap year in the Julian or Gregorian calendar
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When Julius Caesar reformed the calendar in 45 B.C., he stipulated that an extra day be added to February every four years. But the Romans didn't add the extra day until the end of the month; they inserted it after the 24th day of the month. The Romans reckoned days near the end of a month by counting backward from the first of the following month. Since February 24 is six days before March 1 (the Roman method of counting days included both the beginning day and the ending day), it was known as the sextus, or "sixth day." Caesar's extra day became a "second sextus," or bissextus. English-speaker adopted "bissextile" to refer to that extra day, even though its placement in the modern calendar makes that term a misnomer.
Rating 8/10 Leap Days.
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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