Skip to main content

Not even once in a blue moon

I'm reissuing this post from way back in 2009, as the media, including the BBC (which ought to know better) have been going on about there being a blue moon last month. No, there wasn't. See below.

I've seen lots of Twittering over the last few days suggesting that there is going to be a blue moon tonight. Sorry, guys, there isn't.

Take it away Terry Moseley of the Irish Astronomical Association:
There has been a false idea circulating that this will be a 'Blue Moon' because it's the second Full Moon in a month! That erroneous description started when Sky & Telescope magazine wrongly interpreted an old New England Farmer's Almanac as calling the 2nd Full Moon in a month a 'Blue Moon'. They later admitted that they had got it wrong, and published a correction, but not everyone saw the retraction.

A 'Blue Moon' means a very rare and unpredictable event, and it arose after the great Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 blew so much fine volcanic ash into the upper atmosphere that for a while the moon did sometimes appear blue. But that was almost a one-off event, and so the term 'once in a blue moon' means 'hardly ever'. Whereas there are actually two full moons in the same month every few years or so!

So it's not going to be a 'Blue Moon', and in fact if anything, it will appear partly red!
Quick update after some comments on Facebook - I've checked in the OED, and they have a reference to 'blue moon' being used in this way in 1821, so the Krakatoa event isn't the origin of the term. It doesn't change the fact that tonight isn't a blue moon, though. 

Image from Wikipedia
Labels:

Comments

  1. laurasdad3 January 2010 at 14:03

    Brian

    I just thought you'd like a longer explanation of the origin of "blue moon" for which I have raided the archives of World Wide Words by Michael Quinion (http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-blu2.htm)....

    His article traces the origin of the phrase to 1528 and also sets out the nature of how "Blue Moon" came to get its current (incorrect) association with two full moons a month.

    Happy New Year

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brian Clegg3 January 2010 at 14:26

    That's interesting - thanks, Ian. Someone should tell the OED, as they always like to have the earliest usage...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...
118 comments
Read more

Murder by Candlelight - Ed. Cecily Gayford ***

Nothing seems to suit Christmas reading better than either ghost stories or Christmas-set novels. For some this means a fluffy romance in the snow, but for those of us with darker preferences, it's hard to beat a good Christmas murder. An annual event for me over the last few years has been getting the excellent series of classic murderous Christmas short stories pulled together by Cecily Gayford, starting with the 2016 Murder under the Christmas Tree . This featured seasonal output from the likes of Margery Allingham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ellis Peters and Dorothy L. Sayers, laced with a few more modern authors such as Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, in some shiny Christmassy twisty tales. I actually thought while purchasing this year's addition 'Surely she is going to run out of classic stories soon' - and sadly, to a degree, Gayford has. The first half of Murder by Candlelight is up to the usual standard with some good seasonal tales from the likes of Catherine Aird, Car...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...
25 comments
Read more