| Mixed-style Date |
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Information AboutMixed-style Date |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT MIXED-STYLE DATE | |
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In ( Lady Day ), from 1753 onward the new year began on New Year's Day , 1 January . As a result of this, considerable confusion can result when discussing events which occurred prior to 1753. Should we use the 'old-style' date for the occurrence (as it would have been written by a participant) or the 'new-style' (as we would write it)? As far as the month and '''day''' are concerned, there seems no point in recalculating the Gregorian equivalent, especially since some events and holidays are so intimately tied to the date. (Is there any point in saying that Christmas was celebrated on 14 December ?) On the other hand, though, as far as the '''year''' is concerned, we may very well be interested in how many years ago an event occurred, for which we do need to recalculate the date according to our system. Based on these considerations, many authors choose to present dates essentially as they would have been written by contemporaries; but if the date falls before 25 March , both possible numbers for the year are given, separated by a slash. Thus the birthday of George Washington would be written as 11 February 1731/32 where 1731 is the old-style date and 1732 the new. (A Frenchman on the Gregorian calendar would have put his birth at 22 February 1732 , of course.) N.B.— ''While 'old-style' and 'new-style' are widely-used and accepted terms, 'mixed-style' is not. These years are often called '''double-dated years'''.'' |
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