Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 March 19

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March 19

Inventor of grid-style calendar?

Who invented the modern, grid-style calendar, the kind you probably have on your wall? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.37.237.212 (talk) 11:01, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Probably the same person who invented the paper calendar. 78.147.2.253 (talk) 17:00, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, a grid would also work on clay tablets. Thus, the inventor probably is anonymous, and "from antiquity". StuRat (talk) 17:33, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, come on. It could have been done, therefore it probably was done? Citation needed.

Actually, the question is slightly ambiguous, and it might make a difference. There are two kinds of "grid-style calendar" commonly seen today. In one, each grid square is filled by a number: the calendar is only for the purpose of showing you the relationship of specific dates to days of the week. These seem to be what Stu is talking about.

The other sense of "grid calendar" is one where for each day a small number is placed in a large grid square, leaving you space to write in any things like appointments you want to remember for that day. Unless you intended to keep the thing forever, that style only makes sense with a medium that you would considere disposable, or perhaps an erasable one. It would make sense if it dated only from the era when paper became cheap. Therefore, that must be the case. :-)

In The Book of Firsts (1974), Patrick Robertson does not give calendars a full entry, but does give the dates 1454 for the first printed calendar (by Gutenberg) and 1845 for the first advertising calendar (advertising an insurance company in Auburn, New York). --Anonymous, 18:57 UTC, March 19, 2010, according to my calendar.

For something as common sense as a grid calendar, I can't imagine that nobody would have thought of it until paper came along. How else would they record dates ? A 365-day long clay tablet ? StuRat (talk) 22:06, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Image:Roman-calendar.png is from 60BC and looks like it might be a form of grid calendar. Googlemeister (talk) 19:19, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Fixed your link (was pointing to a thumbnail version).

Thanks. That's an interesting calendar, but it is not a grid. Our present typical grid calendar has one row for each week and one column for each day of the week. This Roman calendar has one column for each month and one row in each column for each day of that month. So a 29-day month has 29 rows while a 31-day month has 31 rows. They aren't what you'd call uniformly spaced, but the rows in each column do use the full height; hence the rows don't form a grid reading across the calendar.

It's interesting in two respects. First, it shows the pre-Julian Roman calendar, with 13 months, as leap year. Note that July and August still have their old names (Quintilis and Sextilis) and the leap month is shown as Intercalarius: the names appear in the top line in abbreviated form. The bottom line shows the lengths of the months, although it's hard to read because the consective Roman numerals are almost run together. You have to carefully parse what looks like "XXIXXXIIXXXXIXXIX..." to see that it means "XXIX, XXIIX, XXXI, XXIX...", i.e. 29, 28, 31, 29, etc. Note also that 28 was written as XXIIX rather than XXVIII. In classical times "subtractive" forms of Roman numeral like IV and IX were only used when necessary to save space, unlike our modern treatment where there is a definite rule for when to use them, and obviously saving space was necessary here.

The other point of interest is that the actual dates are not shown. Instead each day is shown as one of 8 days of the week, lettered A–H. The Roman representation of dates was a bit verbose even when abbreviated and perhaps this was another way to save space. The date we call March 12, for example, would be "4th (counting backwards and inclusively) to the Ides of March": in abbreviated Latin perhaps "IV ID MAR". They could have just written "IV", though, and it's interesting that they didn't. (A date later in March, after the Ides, would be counted backwards and inclusively from the Kalends of April.) --Anonymous, 21:21 UTC, March 19 (or XIV KAL APR), 2010.

Man, that was a really impressive explication. (I couldn't make heads or tails of that image.) —151.203.13.50 (talk) 00:14, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. It's now been called to my attention that on the image page there's a link to this page, which has a smaller, but full-color, image of the same calendar. The page also explains some of its other features. In the color image you can see that the run-together Roman numerals actually are easily read, because they're in alternating colors. --Anonymous, 07:46 UTC, March 24, 2010.

Circular grids seem to have been more common in ancient times, but here's a rectangular grid calendar from ancient Egypt: [1]. StuRat (talk) 22:16, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

No, that does not have a "carriage return" at the start of each new week. Read the dates down the right-hand column -- from what I make out, it seems to go from the 25th of one month to the 7th of the following month. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.44.13.87 (talk) 07:05, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe their weeks were 14 days long ? There are also special symbols for the end of the month (a comet ?) and the beginning (the month name ?). StuRat (talk) 18:33, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

The ancient Egyptians used a 12 month calendar of 30 days each (360 days). That suggests to me that the purpose was to create a neat and tidy year planner for accounting purposes ( i.e. grid-style calendar). I would not read too much in to a photo of a broken and incomplete hieroglyph, the purpose of which was to display a narrative. --Aspro (talk) 19:25, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

how to cite an article?

Can anyone tell me ,how to cite references while writing an article. Do we make a bibliography (at the end of article)? list of References or use footnotes? do we use apa , mla? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.186.7.89 (talk) 12:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Questions about using Wikipedia belong at Wikipedia:Help desk. However see Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners with citation templates as a good place to start. DJ Clayworth (talk) 13:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

building self esteem the right way

I have the hugest crush on my neighbor but he is a really big player and he is really good looking and he knows it. When I first met him, it was at a mutual friend's party several weeks ago. We got really drunk and made out. He told my friend that I was really hot and he asked me to be his friend on facebook.

I saw him last week and he seemed really nervous to talk to me. He was smiling a lot but he was stuttering a lot. I was really nervous (because I am super, super shy) and I said I had to go and I walked away. I was embarrassed that he could see that my ears were turning red. But maybe he took that as I was not interested because now, on facebook, he keeps talking about how many girls want him or how many numbers he got, whatever.

I tried to talk to him on facebook but he ignored my comment. So I took him off as my friend. I want him to like me but I couldn't take me obsessing over his facebook account. Was this the right thing to do to rebuild my esteem? --Jenna bomba (talk) 15:35, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The Reference Desk deals with requests for factual information, not relationship advice. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:43, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

e/c The ref-desk isn't your best place to find an 'agony aunt' - as it's not really designed as a discussion forum (though there's plenty of discussion that goes on). You're best finding an agony-aunt style forum and asking there.194.221.133.226 (talk) 15:44, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

There is also an article on Self-esteem that might be worth reading. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

If you do not get an adequate response here Jenna, try this. Vranak (talk) 16:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

There's a shyness article here on Wikipedia, and the bottom of that article has links to other, related articles. Sorry, we're an encyclopedia, and I should mention that encyclopedists have historically not had the reputation of being great with the ladies. They're more like a bunch of monks. Historically, of course. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:32, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

He was probably nervous because he really likes you a lot and is afraid of being rejected by you, or he feels he should not have a close relationship with a neighbour. (Been there, done that). Men get shy too. The boasting about how many girls want him is just boasting - means nothing. Perhaps he did not realise that the person on Facebook is you, or did not notice. Find him and walk up to him and chat with him, and tell him you like him and give him compliments. 78.147.2.253 (talk) 17:06, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe this is where texting comes in. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:59, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Definition and meaning of the term "Franchise state"

Th question I have is" What is a franchise state? Bob —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbossan (talk • contribs) 23:16, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

These are U.S. states that have regulations more protective of distributors or retailers licensed to sell trademarked goods than the relevant Federal regulations. See this article for a more detailed explanation and a list of the franchise states. Marco polo (talk) 01:33, 20 March 2010 (UTC)