[Ansteorra] Happy New Year!!

[Peter Holland]

and now truly our society is the answer to lif the universe and every thing
A grand happy new year from Svipdagr

On 5/1/07, Chiara Francesca <chiara.francesca at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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, (c)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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