[Ansteorra] Happy New Year!!

Alasdair MacEogan alasdair at bmhanson.net
Tue May 1 15:22:16 PDT 2007


As of today it is AS 42.


>  -------Original Message-------
>  From: Bob Dewart <gilli at hot.rr.com>
>  Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] Happy New Year!!
>  Sent: 01 May '07 16:10
>  
>  I'm confussed, which is not new at all.  The Black Star has both AS 41 and
>  AS 42.  Which is it?
>  
>  Gilli
>  Burkhaven, An Odyssey of Learning
>  http://home.hot.rr.com/burkhaven/
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Chiara Francesca" <chiara.francesca at gmail.com>
>  To: "ansteorra at ansteorra.org" <ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org>
>  Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 3:11 PM
>  Subject: [Ansteorra] Happy New Year!!
>  
>  
>  Happy New Year!!
>  
>  Today is May 1st
>  Anno Societatis XXXXII (42)
>  (Being 2007 C.E.)
>  
>     "Any number of other variant or alternative forms may also be found,
>  especially in the imprint dates of books from earlier centuries. These forms
>  include the use of the long versions of the numbers 400 (CCCC) or 40
>  (XXXX) -- these were actually the preferred forms in ancient times and still
>  appear in 20th-century books -- as well as XXC for LXXX, IC for XCIX, VIX
>  for XVI, or IIXX for XVIII, to mention only a few of the more obvious
>  variant patterns. "
>  
>  From:
>  http://www2.inetdirect.net/~charta/Roman_numerals.html
>  
>  
>  1. For an overview of the Roman calendar see the discussion of the
>  "Development of the Modern Calendar" under the entry for Calendar in The
>  Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th edition, ©2000. Also extremely useful for
>  converting Roman calendar dates is Otfried Lieberknecht's Calendar Tools
>  (JavaScript calculator).
>  
>  2. See also Edward R. Hobbs' playful Compvter Romanvs (Java applet), a true
>  calculator which accepts Roman numerals in the range 1 - 3,999,999,
>  validates the input, and performs basic mathematical functions -- addition,
>  subtraction, multiplication, and division.
>  
>  3. The smaller number must be a power of ten (I, X or C) and precede a
>  number no larger than 10 times its own value. The smaller number itself can
>  be preceded only by a number at least 10 times greater (e.g. LXC is invalid)
>  and it must also be larger than any numeral that follows the one from which
>  it is being subtracted (e.g. CMD is invalid).
>  
>  4. Cappelli indicates that the Romans rarely used the subtraction principle
>  and that the convention was equally uncommon during the Middle Ages. See his
>  Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane, 6th ed., Milano, 1967, p.
>  LIV.
>  
>  5. Chronograms are sentences, phrases, inscriptions, or other brief texts
>  that contain dates embedded within them, usually in the form of upper case
>  Roman numerals. If upper case letters appear on the title page of a book
>  seemingly at random, the letters may well represent a chronogram for the
>  date of publication. The intended date can usually be deciphered by making a
>  simple total of all of the letters' corresponding numerical values without
>  regard for their order (the order isn't usually meaningful). For example,
>  the phrase "I MarrIeD LuCy In CInCInnatI" would suggest that its author was
>  married in 1856.
>  
>  6. See R.B. McKerrow, Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students,
>  Oxford, 1927 (appendix 3) for a brief discussion. Also his fuller treatment
>  of 16th-century practices in The Library, 3rd Ser., no. 1.
>  
>  7. Sometimes referred to as a "backwards C", although the term is not
>  strictly accurate. Like modern-day rubber stamps, type used in making early
>  books consisted of a raised printing surface (face) cast on a solid body
>  (shank) with no reverse-side image. Consequently, it wasn't physically
>  possible to turn type over, or backwards, to create an exact mirror image
>  such as this:
>  (image of a backwards C)
>  Rather, printers would reverse the C by rotating the type 180 degrees to an
>  upside down position.
>  
>  This is the classic form of the apostrophic C, used throughout the era of
>  the handpress and still occasionally found in printed books today. Digital
>  technology of course makes it a simple matter to produce backwards, or
>  mirror image letters, as can be seen in the Unicode Consortium's published
>  standard for the apostrophic C, or ROMAN NUMERAL REVERSED ONE HUNDRED
>  (Unicode glyph U+2183, v. 4.0 (.pdf)).
>  
>  8. Bongo's curious work on "the mystery of numbers" (or Numerorum Mysteria,
>  as it was commonly known), was first published in two parts at Bergamo
>  (1583-1584) and frequently reissued. The partial table reproduced here
>  originally appeared in the 1614 edition and was scanned from a text
>  illustration in David Smith's Rara Arithmetica, Boston, 1908 (see figs.
>  190-191). Click here to view a reproduction of the title-page of Bongo's
>  original work (part 2, dated 1584), which bears a Roman numeral imprint date
>  displaying several of the features under discussion.
>  
>  
>  Chiara
>  
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