Friday, September 30, 2005

good as an abacus, if you ask me

i was trying to figure out how many days there were in September but was in a hurry and too lazy to look it up.

so i put my closed fists fingers-down and looked at the up/down of my knuckles:

JAN feb MAR apr MAY june JULY
AUG sept OCT nov DEC

(caps: 31 days, non-caps: fewer)

no idea where i heard this, but i think it was sometime in the '80s.

pretty handy.

13 comments:

Unknown said...

I do that! my mom tought me-

--maybe your mom tought you?

X said...

pretty handy.

Pun intended?

---X

DCveR said...

Hehehehe dad taught me that even before I went to school. I think everybody uses that whenever they are not sure how many days a month has.

cadiz12 said...

i have no idea where i picked that up.

and X, you know it was. i'm cheesy like that.

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

There's a little rhyme we learnt in school:

30 days hath September,
April, June and November,
All the rest have 31
Except February alone,
Which hath but 28 days,
And 29 in each leap year.

I can't figure out the handy one :-(
It sounds neat.

Unknown said...

ohhh- 'handy' i just got it---

Anonymous said...

I do that too! I think a teacher in grade school taught us that!

piu piu said...

i never learnt to do it...

lucasjackson7 said...

holy crap! that's like crazy mayan or incan code or something.

perhaps you could use your skills for evil?

i've got a trip to vegas awaiting your clever counting tactics.

Syar said...

I just got the pun. LOL. thanks, X.

I use G.G's method more often than I use the knuckle method. but both are pretty nifty to use. I think a school mate taught me the knuckle thing.

Andy said...

I'm with gyal... I learned that "rhyme", despite its lack of rhyming...

Anonymous said...

chiming in late, but omg...yes!
i always rely on this method :)

Lia said...

I learned that trick too.

I was going to post the "30 days hath . . " rhyme, but I was beaten to it. My version is shorter, though - you don't have all that stuff about February; the fourth line is just "Except for the second one", and you're expected to know about the tricky things with February changing all on your ownsome.