Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Joyous Nondiscriminatory Timechunk!

First, the easy part. If you celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas! (and Feliz Navidad!)

Of course, there's a much wider world out there, so I would like to include you in my good wishes if you are:

Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, or a follower of any other formal religion or tradition;

Secular or Pagan;

Atheist, Agnostic, Unsure, or Indifferent;

Lackadaisical, Lapsed, Recovering, or Bitter;

or if you have taken the world's great religious traditions, poured them in the blender, and pressed the button marked "Liquefy";

To all the above and anyone I might have left out, I wish you a Joyous Nondiscriminatory Timechunk! and a Happy New Year.

4 comments:

  1. Young Curmudgeon, being a pendantic sort, points out:

    Not everyone has a new year at this time of the year, you should probably leave it at: I wish you a Joyous Nondiscriminatory Timechunk!

    And a Joyous Nondiscriminatory Timechunk to you too!

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  2. Ack! It's impossible to get this nondiscriminatory stuff right!

    Young Curmudgeon, it's true that Jews have a New Year in September, and Chinese have a New Year in January or February, but everybody lives in a world where January 1st is the New Year, at least for bureaucratic purposes. I don't know of anyone who dates checks with the Jewish or Chinese year, for instance.

    Hmm ... how do people date checks in Israel and China? Can someone enlighten me? I'm guessing they use "2010", "2011", as part of the modern world.

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  3. @FedUpMom- I'm learning Chinese and yes, they do use the year system we use. For example, the date today (in my time zone at least) is 2010年 (nián- year) 12月 (yuè- month) 24日 (rì- day)。 I've seen a "normal" calendar which had the lunar months and days written on in smaller numbers so I think that in China the Gregorian one is more in use there while the lunar one is more for cultural/traditional purposes now.

    Sorry if that made no sense.

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  4. Thanks, Anonymous, that's pretty much what I figured. My problem is I'm too imaginative and I can always come up with an alternative.

    For instance, might there be hyper-Orthodox Jews in Israel who insist on using the Hebrew calendar? Or pockets of traditionalist Chinese who just write "Year of the Tiger" (soon to be "Year of the Rabbit") on their checks? Not likely.

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