What day is it, and in what month?

Credit: ppdigital of everystockphoto

     Do you know what today is? Do you really? 
     The Gregorian Calendar, the most commonly used calendar in the USA as well as in the Western world, has 12 months. Though the Gregorian Calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, six of them (January, February, March, April, May and June) are named for pagan gods and goddesses, and two (July and August) are named for Roman caesars. The last four months are named after numbers-- numbers that don't match the months.
       This realization first dawned on me in one of my foreign language classes. Using my basic knowledge of Latin from high school geometry, I was comparing Latin numbers to polygons and other groupings. Think about it. When a mother is pregnant with septuplets, she has seven little babies kicking around inside of her. An octopus has eight tentacles. A novena is prayed for nine days. When you haven't seen your friend in a decade, you haven't seen him or her in ten years. You get the point.

        So, did you also notice those Latin prefixes in the names of the months? September, October, November and December. However, these months are the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth months of the year, respectively, although their prefixes suggest otherwise. What gives?
       Well, according to Lawrence A. Crowl, these months were originally the seventh through tenth months of the calendar. The original Roman calendar had ten months, starting with March and ending with December. On this system, the numbers all line up, making September the seventh month, October the eighth month, and so on. Around 700 B.C., Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, added January and February to the calendar, creating the twelve-month system we follow today.
          I guess Undecember and Duodecember just don't have the same ring to them.