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See You in September (and Other Monthly Oddities)

Fasten your (still-summer) seat belts - it's going to be a bumpy (Labor Day) ride...
Fasten your (still-summer) seat belts – it’s going to be a bumpy (Labor Day) ride…

During a sultry, after-midnight dream, my blog logged in on its own and proceeded to scold me for writing too many business-related posts. Yes, Moonlight Blog pleaded with me (from my powered-off desktop) to put away my white open-toed sandals (as if) and craft something truly weird for the brink of September.

(Perhaps I’ve been tippling a bit too much coconut water this summer. We’ll leave that for another blog post…)

Not wanting to disappoint my beloved blog, I took up the gauntlet of wackiness and Googled myself silly. Here’s the best of what I found regarding facts about the month of September:

“Sept” is French for Seven, but the Romans Preferred Latin: Although it’s the ninth month of the year, September comes from the Latin “septem,” meaning seven. That’s right, this was the 7th month in the Julian calendar, first introduced by Julius Ceasar in 46 BC.

Once the Gregorian calendar was adopted by those crazy Romans in the 1500s, January became the first month (instead of March). But September kept its name and rotated over to 9th place. You know what they say: “Stultus est sicut stultus facit.”

Just the Basic (and Not Yet Weird) September Facts: September offers its birthday boys and girls the following credentials: sapphires as their birthstone, asters as their flower (not to be confused with their chrysanthemum cousin), and the astrological signs of Virgo (August 23 – September 22) and Libra (September 23rd – October 22).

September’s best-known holiday is Labor Day, always falling on the first Monday. The more recent phenomenon of Grandparents Day is always observed on the first Sunday after Labor Day. And now, let’s shake up this September Song!

One President Named William Assassinated, and One Born: One of the U.S.’s more obscure presidents, William McKinley (from Ohio), was shot on September 6 in 1901 while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Sadly, he died a little over a week later on September 14. To complete this presidential karma, the 27th POTUS, William Howard Taft, was born in Ohio on September 15 (but in 1857, so no implications of reincarnation here).

Some Eccentric Monthly Things are Observed in September: The more whimsical things celebrated in the lovely month of September include: Chicken Month, Children’s Good Manners Month (this one should be mandatory in all U.S. schools for ten months), Coupon Month, Fall Hat Month, and Tiger Month (no relation to observance of Chinese New Year).

And Yet More Bizarre Holidays Happen in September: To list all of them would be cruel and unusual blogging punishment, so I’ll share what I consider the most outrageous reasons for denoting an observed day:

All the September Trivia Links in One Convenient Location: A post like this doesn’t just materialize from my vivid imagination, as idiosyncratic as it may be. I first stumbled upon the Famous Birthdays site, followed by Yahoo! Voices and Denise Stanley’s blog, A Room To Write.

But the website that offered more than I could stuff into one post was the fabulously quirky Butler Webs. If you’re desperate to know all about the famous people who were born or died in September, go and bookmark the page right now. Go!

 

This post was fun to compile. Tell me, was it good for you? If I wrote a post similar to this one for a different month, would you look forward to reading it, or would you “click on by?” Everybody needs a break from time to time, so enjoy your upcoming Labor Day weekend – I hope you come back to visit my Moonlight Blog in September.

Lori Shapiro is the owner of By All Writes LLC, a business writing, editing, and research company in Marlton, New Jersey. She revels in shielding her clients from the pain of writing their own print and web marketing copy. Call her (856-810-9764) or email her (lori@byallwrites.biz) for a no-obligation project quote today!


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