Common Misconceptions

I’m using this blog post to talk about three common misconceptions/misunderstandings. These are very prevalent and I come across them what feels like every other week. If I don’t address this, for once, I’ll go crazy.

What’s Your Sign? No It’s Not

Whenever a girl begins with, “Do you know what my horoscope said?” you can answer confidently, “That you’re crazy.”

I guess that my love for astronomy and the skeptic in me combine for a really frustrated guy when it comes to astrology. I can’t even begin to count the ways how dumb it is. But the best part is, all these folks that think they know their signs, don’t.

There are many different branches of astrology and many that are much older, but the one that we use here in the States is what’s called “Western astrology”. This system of the twelve constellations came around the 2nd century AD. And in Western astrology, sometime ago, someone got lazy and stopped looking at the sky because the position of the stars had changed! It takes the earth 27,000 years to go through all 12 different zodiac signs. It’s substantial enough that no one really noticed that the position of the constellations changed, yet it’s small enough that the small change is noticeable after only a few hundred years.

There are a few people that use the correct form of Western astrology, called Sidereal astrology. However, most Americans use the out of date version, Tropical astrology.

So what is your real sign? The table below should clear that up.

Constellation		Tropical date	Sidereal Date	Sun is in constellation
	Aries	March 21 – April 19	April 15 – May 15	April 17 – May 13
	Taurus	April 20 – May 21	May 16 – June 15	May 14 – June 19
	Gemini	May 22 – June 22	June 16 – July 15	June 20 – July 20
	Cancer	June 23 – July 22	July 16 – August 15	July 21 – August 9
	Leo	July 23 – August 22	August 16 – September 15	August 10 – September 15
	Virgo	August 23 – September 23	September 16 – October 15	September 16 – October 30
	Libra	September 24 – October 23	October 16 – November 15	October 31 – November 22
	Scorpius	October 24 – November 22	November 16 – December 15	November 23 – November 29
	Ophiuchus	N/A	N/A	November 30 – December 17
	Sagittarius	November 23 – December 21	December 16 – January 14	December 18 – January 17
	Capricorn	December 22 – January 20	January 15 – February 14	January 18 – February 15
	Aquarius	January 21 – February 19	February 15 – March 14	February 16 – March 11
	Pisces	February 20 – March 20	March 15 – April 14	March 12 – April 16

As you can see, I was born on January 13th, making me a Capricorn in the Western, incorrect version. But my actual, real, sign is Sagittarius.

So the next time someone starts talking to you about how they’re a Libra, or a Virgo, or whatever, smile and rest assured that they were born under the sign of gullible.

 

There Is No Such Thing As a Year Zero

So my buddy Corey Sanchez was giving me grief that I was born in the 70’s because I was born in 1979. However, since I’m one year older, he was born in 1980, also making him a child of the 70’s.

Let me explain.

Let’s count the X’s shall we:

X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X   X
1    2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10

You wouldn’t count them 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 would you? Yet that’s what many people do incorrectly with the decades, they start at zero and end at nine, i.e., 1980 through 1989. Since we can all agree that there are ten X’s and not nine, lets count the X’s again, this time, assuming we already counted 2000 of them.

X          X      X       X        X        X       X       X       X       X
2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  2007  2008  2009  2010

I think this helps people understand how the decades work better. We did not start a new decade (dekas meaning ten), like many believe, we are in the last year of our current one.

So yes, Corey was born in the 70’s, you can’t count zero, one is first – not second, and the tenth year of anything ends in ten, not nine.

Who knew?

December is the Tenth Month, Not the Twelfth

Ok, this one is not a misconception, but it is kind’ve interesting how wrong we all have it, even though it’s correct. Now, anyways.

Back in the day, the Roman calendar only had 10 months. As soon as winter came, those two months, folks just stayed inside, and didn’t count them. Many of the months are simply Latinised names of numbers. If you remember any of your high school Spanish, the numbers of the months may sound familiar.

September – From the Latin septum, meaning seven, now our ninth month

October – From the Latin octo, meaning eight, now our tenth month

November – From the Latin novem, meaning nine, now our eleventh month, and

December – From the Latin decem, meaning ten, now our twelth month

In fact, the two previous months were Quintilis (meaning five) and Sextilis (meaning six), until Julius Caesar’s and Augustus’ big fat egos got involved. However, the calendar was already wrong in their time since the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, added the two extra months of January and February, nearly 700 years before a single Caesar was born.

I think the real reason aliens haven’t landed is because they look at us, see we can’t understand simple math and peace out.

–Tony Hernandez

Post Script
This was written on the 10th month, of the first year of this new decade, by a Capricorn. Or was it?