Tomorrow (today for some of you!) will be February 29th, which occurs only once every 4 years. My recollection is that there is a word for this. Does anyone know?

leapyearedness

Watch for the answers as bonus words tomorrow!

When I think of leap year, I always think of Pirates of Penzance where the pirate is indentured until his 21st year. He is released at age 21, only to find that since he was born on leap year, he was only officially 5 years old! He therefore couldn't be released until he was 84 years old.

A leap year actually should occur only every 3 and twenty-four/twenty fifths years. As it can't we have no leap year at the turn of the century to get rid of the cumulative error of approximately a day.

Richard English

I know this is a leap year but is Feb 29th called 'leap day'?

Here is your answer, as promised. But speaking casually, I'd think that Feb. 29 would be called it a leap day. No one would understand you if you called it an intercalary day or a bissextile day.

quote:

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Originally posted by museamuse:
I know this is a leap year but is Feb 29th called 'leap day'?

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Yes, Feb. 29 is leap day, according to Wikipedia. It's also called bissextile or intercalary day, as wordcrafter noted.

The Wikipedia article explains that the Chinese and Hebrew calandars are lunisolar and sometimes have a leap month. There is an intercalary day in the Iranian calendar, also, but there is a more complicated and precise way of determining it.

Near the end of the article the tradition of women proposing on leap years is mentioned. In Scotland in 1288 a man could be fined for refusing a woman's proposal during leap year!

Wikipedia also has a calendar for a leap year starting on Thursday.

Tinman

Excerpt from an article in The Seattle Times:

I have a proposal for you ...

"It is statut and ordaint that ... for ilk yeare knowne as lepe yeare, ilk mayden ladye ... shall hae liberte to bespeke ye man she likes, albeit he refuses to taik hir to be his lawful wyfe, he shall be mulcted in ye sum ane pundis or less ... except and awis gif he can make it appeare that he is betrothit ane ither woman he then shall be free."

The year was 1228, and Scottish law had just ordained that in a leap year, any unmarried woman could propose to any man she darn well pleased. If he refused her without good cause (such as "ane ither woman" hanging about), he had to pay her a pound, and, according to some reports, pony up a kiss and a new silk gown

Where did all of this get started?

In fifth-century Ireland, legend has it, St. Brigid complained to St. Patrick that women had to wait too long for their men to propose marriage. Wasn't there something he could do to even the odds? St. Patrick, a bachelor at heart, granted St. Brigid her request, but with one small catch: Women could propose to men, but only during leap years (perhaps feeling remorseful, he threw in the silk dress thing).

Eventually, the custom spread to Scotland, France, Italy and England, where in 1840, it prompted none other than Charles Dickens to publish "an urgent remonstrance" to the bachelors of his country regarding "the horrors and dangers with which the said Bissextile, or Leap Year, threatens the gentlemen of England on every occasion of its periodical return."

But no one seemed to mind. By the early 20th century, lavish Leap Year balls were all the rage in the U.S. and leap-year cards bearing coy proposals cluttered mailboxes across the nation. Many featured some variation on the "crazed spinster seeks husband" theme. Others were more demure:

"In Leap Year, it's the thing for girls
Their preferences to state
And so I guess that I propose
That we should make a date."

Tinman

Museamuse, you're back! HOORAYYYYYYY!!!!