Why is February, my favorite month, the runt month of the year?  Why has it only 28 days while seven other months have 31 and four have 30 days? Is this fair? What has February done to deserve such cavalier treatment?

February seems to have been an afterthought from the very start. There once wasn’t a February, nor a January for that matter. The early Romans had a 10-month calendar of 304 days; their year started in March. No February. When that didn’t work out too well, they added January and February, but then had one confusing mess to deal with that has persisted throughout history.

The early Babylonians worked with a lunisolar calendar of 12 months of 30 days each, and the Egyptians a solar calendar of 365 days: 12 months of 30 days, plus 5 more thrown in at year’s end.  (They were getting close.) The Greeks couldn’t do better than struggle with their calendar of only 354 days. But then, King Ptolemy III came up with the idea of leap year to help make up the shortage.

Two self-serving emperors got into the act. Julius Caesar set up a solar calendar of 365 days, with a leap year every fourth year, and named July after himself. Caesar Augustus, his successor, not to be outdone, named the next month for himself, August.

Still, today, the matter hasn’t been settled. Much of the world uses the Gregorian calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, but calendars other than the Gregorian are still in use. Religious calendars, notably the Jewish and Islamic, have twelve months whose names and lengths differ from each other as well as from the Gregorian. There’s an International Fixed Calendar and a World calendar. And don’t overlook Perpetual Calendars; a check of the Patent files lists them, but their usage is limited. (I’ve even invented one myself, but who cares?)

Getting back to February, it was named after the Roman festival of purification, februa, but it was given only 29 days, a runt month from the start. I can’t help but wonder why February has been held in such low esteem.

Changes to the calendar are nothing new, so there is no reason we can’t do something about February. It certainly deserves better.

To remove the stigma from February, why not make it 30 days long with one day taken from July, another from August, leaving each with 30 days? Why should two ancient emperors remain honored with long months? There are many other characters throughout history who might better be remembered by having a month named after them: scientists, writers, artists, philosophers and inventors.

Thinking outside the box, we might divide the year into fifty-two months, each one week long, and name each week after a worthy character. Of course, even then, there would be many deserving individuals left out. On the downside, creating fifty-two week-long months would distort history and require rewriting of history books, a monumental task with historians turning to computers for assistance. I can just see them disagreeing with one another, depending on which program they were using. (Programmers might be bribed to make things come out the way the highest bidder wanted them to.) And wouldn’t astrologers howl?

The advantages of bringing equity to February by awarding it 30 days start by casting off the shame of it being the year’s only runt month. Once made longer, it would shine with a new brilliance. People originally born in the first two days of March would be eligible for the honor of being born in February.  And shortening July and August to lengthen February would produce an easily remembered run of four months of 30 days each — June through September. The only downside would be ruination of the old verse in its present form:

Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the
rest have thirty-one, except February which has twenty-eight.

A committee of renowned poets could be assigned the task of writing a new verse to fit the new year.

Going one step further, February might even be allotted 31 days, giving it the last day taken from December. By making December a day shorter, the New Year would arrive a day earlier. That would bring cheer to those left tired and disconsolate from troubles and disappointments at year’s end, since that is when people eagerly look forward, hoping things will be better. They hope for a more peaceful world, better health, more money, better relationships at home, and the ability to lose a little weight.That’s only one day, to be sure, but think of the total joy when millions (maybe billions) of people heave a collective sigh of relief.  

In view of the foregoing, I propose a committee take up the cause. We’ll all feel better, even excited, having been around when at long last, my favorite runt, February, becomes one of the boys.