Give it up for Pope Gregory. Even though it isn’t Lent

Hello and welcome to the good news column. Yes, I can confirm that each and every one of you is being awarded, free gratis and for nothing, an extra day this year and that day is Thursday, February 29th. Yours by the grace of God/Father Time and Pope Gregory XIII who in 1582 reformed the old Roman/Julian calendar. So, give it up for Pope Gregory.

(You will do nothing of the sort. I digress. I loathe that appeal to audiences to “give it up” for every Tom, Dick or Harriet when he or she as much as blows his/her nose. Give it up? That’s what you do for Lent, and who applauds Lent? And, while I’m at it, there’s the equally irritating “[so and so] has your back”. My back? Return it immediately. Just what does it mean?)

Did you know that sundry Protestant countries refused for hundreds of years to accept the Gregorian calendar, fearing it was yet another popish plot, like the EU?

As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted ... thank you, Pope Gregory, for next Thursday. Though it can cause confusion in our house. You see one of my brothers got married on February 29th, 1976, meaning this year is his and his (sometimes) sainted wife’s 12th anniversary.

Of course I know that, technically, that is literally not the case, but why spoil a good line? Besides, it might make a good pub quiz question: “Their eldest child is in his 40s but this couple just celebrated their 12th anniversary. Explain?” No, you cannot ask Google or Pope Gregory.

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The bar is so low for violent men they are ‘to be given credit’ when they admit their guilt

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‘I am working with a very difficult person and it is having a huge effect on my life’

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And did you know that sundry Protestant countries refused for hundreds of years to accept the Gregorian calendar, fearing it was yet another popish plot, like the EU? So it was 1752 before it was accepted here, across the water, in America and elsewhere in the British empire at the time. (They were always a bit slow.) And if you think that’s bad, it was 1918 before it was accepted in Russia. And if you think that’s bad, it was 2006 before it was accepted in Saudi Arabia.

Leap Day. Leap, from Old English hliep, hlyp, for “leap, bound, spring”. Day from Old English dæg, for “period during which the sun is above the horizon”.

inaword@irishtimes.com