I'm just gonna throw in the bit of historical trivia that the ancient (pre-Republic) Roman calendar *didn't have months* for January and February -- that whole time of year was just called "winter" ("hiems") and not worth keeping track of until the Kalends of Marchhttps://twitter.com/Hal_Duncan/status/1315751438673379336 …
-
Show this thread
-
February being an "odd one out" of the months with fewer days than any other month was sort-of intentional based on Roman superstition -- February was the worst-luck part of the year, the crappy part of the winter everyone hated, that people still tried to ignore
3 replies 1 retweet 44 likesShow this thread -
Like, it was bad luck to *say* it, and you would try to avoid scheduling during February, hence they tried to minimize how much "February" there was in the year ...Which is why it's kind of funny we decided to make it Black History Month, like SNL pointed out
1 reply 1 retweet 35 likesShow this thread -
That's why it's kind of funny and perverse that English people invented Valentine's Day and tried to link it to the "Roman tradition of Lupercalia" They didn't know what they were talking about, the Februa/Lupercalia (which February is named for) had nothing to do with sex/love
4 replies 1 retweet 30 likesShow this thread -
It was considered a time for "spring cleaning" and the Februa itself was this blood sacrifice ritual to purge the built-up bad luck and evil spirits haunting the city from the previous year in hopes of a clean slate It wasn't really a sexy time of year
2 replies 1 retweet 21 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @arthur_affect
I guess that sprung from a misinterpretation of the fertility superstitions around the rites? Or just from the half naked, youngish luperci running around?
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @TheWeaseKing
A little bit of both, I suppose, plus just them playing fast and loose with tradition because they were all horny in February for whatever reason
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @TheWeaseKing
There's a lot of stuff from medieval England where they played 1970s-swinger-style key party games to "pair up" men and women (drawing names from an urn or whatever) and they would always say this was a Roman custom from Lupercalia but there's no evidence of that
2 replies 1 retweet 9 likes
As is all too common, those English peasants just wanted to do something "naughty" and "dirty" that the church would probably frown upon, and so they labeled it a "pagan" tradition even though it was something made up fairly recently Same stuff happens today
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.