The names of the months in English aren’t in alphabetical order. Until now, that is! Let’s fix the days of the week, too, while we’re at it.

Background:

In English, there are names for days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, …) and months (January, February, …).

The Issue:

But it is not actually necessary for weekdays and months to be named—it’s just a bunch of extra words that serve no purpose!

Many other languages (e.g. Chinese) manage with days named “Day #1, Day #2, …” and months named “Month #1, Month #2, etc.”.

In fact, this is exactly how English operates with days of the month and years: we say “2022,” not “The year of the Golden Elephant,” and “July 8,” not “July, Day of the Indomitable Spirit” or whatever.

Proposal:

Now that it’s clear that we don’t really need month names or weekday names, let’s see what we can do to improve the situation.

The most obvious and least-intrusive one is to keep the months as names, but rename them to be in a sensible order. (This is basically the opposite of what the Roman emperors did when they messed up the month names in the first place.)

Some candiate month names in which the months start with letters A through F (the 12th letter).

  • January  →  Aanuray (abbrev. “AA”)
  • Febraury →  Bebruary (abbrev. “BB”). Maybe we should also remove the “r,” while we’re at it.
  • March →  Carch (abbrev. “CC.”)
  • April →  Dapril (“DD.”)
  • May →  Eay (pronounced “E. A.”, abbrev “EE.”)
  • June →  Foon (“FF.”) (rhymes with “Moon”)
  • July →  Gulai (“GG.”). “Y” changed to “ai” for pronunciation. This is also the name of a food.
  • August →  Hoggust (“HH.”) (Note the change from “u” to “o,” and the additional “g”.)
  • September →  Iptember  (“II.”)
  • October →  Joctober  (“JJ.”)
  • November →  Kovember (“KK.”)
  • December →  Lecember (“LL.”)

Figure 1 shows what a daily calendar might look like with these revised months.

Fig. 1: Wednesday, October 5 is now Threesday, Joctober 5. So easy to remember!

There are many options for renaming the weekdays as well, but let’s just number them from 1 through 7 and be done with it:

  • Monday →  Onesday (abbrev. “D1” or “1sday”)
  • Tuesday →  Twosday (abbrev. “D2” or “2sday”)
  • Wednesday →  Threesday (abbrev. “D3,” etc…)
  • Thursday →  Foursday (abbrev. “D4”)
  • Friday →  Fivesday (abbrev. “D5”)
  • Saturday →  Sixday (abbrev. “D6”)
  • Sunday →  Sevday (abbrev. “D7”)

Now, a date like “Monday, May 16, 2022” would be written as “Oneday, Eay 16, 2022” (or abbreviated as “D1, EE. 16, 2022”).

(The days of the week still don’t alphabetize, but maybe this is OK if people use the abbreviations—“D1” through “D7”—instead.)

Conclusion:

If there’s one thing people love, it’s esoteric massive renaming efforts in the name of efficiency! File this one along with the French Revolution Calendar and the metric-system-ization efforts in the US and Britain. (Apparently this effort even has an official word: “metrication“).

PROS: Finally, the months now alphabetize correctly. Additionally, by removing the weekday names from English, we have made the language easier to learn by ~7-ish words. Students who are learning the English language will appreciate this! This plan also combines nicely with December 6, 2021’s idea (or LL. 6, 2021, if you prefer) for 28 hour days.

CONS: Everyone will love this idea, but the staid old-fashioned plutocrats at BIG CALENDAR might oppose it. Don’t fall for their diabolical anti-modernization schemes!