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− | {{comic | + | {{PAGENAME}} was vandalised by Willy on Wheels! |
− | | number = 1140
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− | | date = November 28, 2012
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− | | title = Calendar of Meaningful Dates
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− | | image = calendar of meaningful dates.png
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− | | titletext = In months other than September, the 11th is mentioned substantially less often than any other date. It's been that way since long before 9/11 and I have no idea why.
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− | }} | |
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− | ==Explanation==
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− | The calendar used in the comic is the standard {{w|Gregorian calendar}} used by most of Western Civilization. The comic looks at the frequencies of which dates appear in English writings indexed in the {{w|Google Books Library Project}}, by using the {{w|Google Ngram Viewer}} ([http://books.google.com/ngrams link]).
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− | Some dates are more (or less) frequently mentioned because they have a special significance. Other dates have correlations for which there doesn't appear to be any obvious reasons. September 11th, which is noted in the title text for being popular before the 9/11 attack, has also been the date of 2 significant battles in the War of 1812, one where the British landed in what was George Washington's large plantation, which likely contributed to its search volume.
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− | The date mentioned in the sub-heading (October 17th) is Randall's birthday.
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− | The title text mystery is explained [http://drhagen.com/blog/the-missing-11th-of-the-month/ here]. In summary, many occurrences of "11th" in the writings were actually misread by the Google Books Library Project's [[wikipedia:optical character recognition|optical character recognition]] software and/or [[wikipedia:reCAPTCHA|reCAPTCHA]] users, becoming one of these: <code>IIth</code>, <code>Ilth</code>, <code>iith</code>, <code>lith</code>, <code>llth</code>, <code>1lth</code>, <code>1ith</code>, <code>l1th</code>, <code>nth</code>.
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− | ===Date Significance===
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− | The first of each month is generally more mentioned than others, perhaps because such dates are markers of a new month and may be used as landmark dates or deadlines. Similarly, the final day of each month is commonly a deadline day. Other dates have a less mundane significance, for example:
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− | *January 1 is {{w|New Year's Day|New Year's Day}}.
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− | *February 14 is {{w|Valentine's Day}}.
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− | *February 29 only exists during {{w|Leap year|leap years}}.
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− | *March 15 is the {{w|Ides of March}}.
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− | *March 21 is considered the first day of {{w|Spring (season)|spring}}, by a common convention in the northern hemisphere.
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− | *April 1 is {{w|April Fools' Day}}.
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− | *April 15 is {{w|Tax Day|US Individual Income Tax return filing day}}.
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− | *May 1 is {{w|International Workers' Day|International Workers' Day}}, or {{w|May Day|May Day}}.
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− | *June 4 is the {{w|June Fourth Incident}}, or the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
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− | *June 30 is the end of the {{w|Fiscal Year| fiscal year}} for most American states and local governments.
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− | *July 1 is {{w|Canada Day}}.
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− | *July 4 is {{w|Independence Day (United States)|US Independence Day}}.
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− | *September 11 is the date of the {{w|September 11 attacks|2001 terrorist attacks}} in New York City and Washington, DC. It's the largest number by a big margin, most likely because unlike the other dates it has no special name, it's referred to as "9/11" (or "September 11") almost exclusively.
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− | *December 7 is the date of the {{w|Attack on Pearl Harbor|1941 attack on Pearl Harbor}}.
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− | *December 25 is {{w|Christmas|Christmas}}.
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− | *December 31 is {{w|New Year's Eve|New Year's Eve}}.
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− | ==Transcript==
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− | :'''Calendar of Meaningful Dates'''
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− | :Each date's size represents how often it is referred to by name (e.g. "October 17th") in English-language books since 2000
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− | :(Source: Google ngrams corpus)
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− | :[A regular Gregorian calendar laid out in a grid, Sunday first, on a leap year, with some numbers larger or smaller than others. Significant outliers are mentioned in the explanation.]
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− | {{comic discussion}}
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− | [[Category: Calendar]]
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