Thirty Days...

By Paul Roberts

“Thirty days hath September” is a line of poetry I remember,

Learned by rote when I was young, perhaps in kindergarten sung;

“Thirty days hath September,

April June and November;

All the rest have thirty-one…”

I would hazard a guess that in my nearly 65 years I have recited the first few lines of that old bit of doggerel to myself a couple of thousand times. Today, as I started my morning journal pages by dutifully writing the date at the top of the page, I wondered to myself why September gets top billing in that poem. After all, “thirty days hath November” has the same rhythm and rhyme. Since my birthday falls in the eleventh month of the year, I asked myself “There is nothing to prevent me from starting the poem with November, is there?”

And down the rabbit hole I went.

Apparently, the poem has been around in the English language for a good 500 years or so. It was written in Latin before that, and exists in many European languages as well. Of course, the Roman calendar that we follow now - with its Julian and Gregorian reforms - has been around even longer. The first line of the earliest Latin form of the poem starts with “Junius Aprilis September et ipse November.” It seems logical, if you know that “septem” and “novem” are seven and nine, respectively, in that ancient now dead language, to put September first. “Aprilis” was the second month of the year in that calendar, which explains the number connection even more clearly. However, many of the earlier English versions do begin with November, and in the US that order was the most common until the late 1800’s. 

My deep dive answered another question for me this morning as well: “Why can’t I ever remember the rest of the poem?”

There are times when I say the poem out loud to help me remember how many days there are in a month, but I never say the whole thing. And what I do say aloud is just a whispered, mumbled                 “30days-haseptemmerapiljune-n-november…”

That’s part of the reason I can’t remember the rest. But there is also the fact that there are many versions of the rest of the poem, including:

…Of 28 is but one/And all the remnant 30 and 1

…February has 28 alone/And all the rest have 31.

…Excepting February alone/And that has twenty-eight days clear/And twenty-nine in each leap year.

…Excepting February alone/To which we twenty-eight assign/Till leap year gives it twenty-nine.

…Excepting February alone/Which has twenty-eight, nay, more/Has twenty-nine one year in four.

So many versions, so little time. That inconsistency likely explains why, as of this morning, I’ve written my own version, which I intend to memorize and faithfully use for the next 65 years:

Thirty days has November,

April, June, and September;

All the rest have 31

‘cept February, and now I’m done.

                                                             ***************

What is your relationship with this old piece of poetry? Share it with us.

To leave a comment on our blog, you can use Disqus.  It is easy to sign up.  You can use Google, Facebook, Twitter or your email.  There is no cost.  Just put in your name and email address and create a password.  Then confirm your account with the email they send you. Then you can use Disqus to comment on the blog.  We would love to hear your thoughts.