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In a year, there is one special month. With 28 days February is the shortest month but in one year in every four it has 29 days. You know, a long time ago, there were only ten months in the original Roman calendar. January and February were later added to make the year better match the time it takes the Earth to go round the Sun. The word ‘February’ is from “the Roman festival of purification, namely ‘Februa’ where people were ritually washed.” Before the Latin name of February was adopted into English, its Old English name was first ‘Solmonath’ which means ‘mud month’. Later, in the 1100s, the month of February was named ‘Kale-monath’ meaning ‘cabbage month’ since at that time, the English were eating a lot of cabbage.
The history of the name February in this column is credited to |
