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At some point, I learned a different way to remember this. Put your fists together, and then start counting across your knuckles and the gaps between them. Knuckle? 31 days. In between? Not 31 days. Thanks to your anatomy, July and August line up correctly, and off you go.
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The rhyme is and always was stupid. You can fit other months into it seamlessly: "Thirty days hath December, April, May, and November.
I learned using the "count your knuckles" trick, which I find a _lot_ easier than trying to use that rhyme.
Make a fist and touch your first knuckle (pointer finger, not your thumb) then count off the months. The knuckles have 31 days and the spaces between are 30 except February. When you get to the end of your hand (July), start over with your pointer knuckle again.
You can do the same algorithm in your head pretty easily once you learn the pattern.
Make a fist and touch your first knuckle (pointer finger, not your thumb) then count off the months. The knuckles have 31 days and the spaces between are 30 except February. When you get to the end of your hand (July), start over with your pointer knuckle again.
You can do the same algorithm in your head pretty easily once you learn the pattern.
months are based on the yearly solar/orbit cycle. weeks don't have any basis, right? So Mondays are Mondays because of tradition and good recordkeeping, right? Trippy.
Uranus
Simpler: from January to July, inclusive, it alternates between 31 and 30 days, with the obvious exception of February. Then, August to December, inclusive, again it alternates between 31 and 30, no exception this time.
There's a cool mental calculation hack I recently learned for this: If you open the calendar app on your phone or computer, the highest-numbered box along the bottom is equal to the number of days in the month!