This happens to me almost every month — I have to stop and think about how many days there are.
Some months I know by heart. January has 31, February 28, October has 31, December 31. But those months in between — March, April, May, June, July, August, September, November — I honestly don’t know.
I use the fist method (aka the knuckle method). It sounds crude, and it is. I form my hand into a fist then act like I’m about to do a fist bump with a friend. As I’m looking at the fist from the top, I use the knuckles and valleys that my fist makes to count the months.
Knuckles stand for 31 days, valleys for 30 (except in the case of February, which is 28).
Counting Months on your Fist, iPhone photo of ybonesy’s fist,
March 30, 2010, image © 2010 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
So, using the fist method we learn:
- First knuckle hump is January — 31 days
- Valley is February — 28 days
- Knuckle is March — 31
- Valley is April — 30
- Knuckle is May — 31
- Valley is June — 30
- Knuckle is July — 31
At this point we run out of fist, so we start over:
- First knuckle is August — 31 (this is when we remember that July and August both have 31 days)
- Valley is September — 30
- Knuckle is October — 31
- Valley is November — 30
- Knuckle is December — 31
If like me you were trying to remember if March has 30 days or 31, now you know. And you’ve learned an easy method to always be able to figure out how many days there are in a given month.
I know, I am a font of helpful information.
What a fun post, and I love the picture of your hand. I use that method too, and also a short ditty we learned in grade school:
Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except February alone,
Which has twenty-eight in fine,
And each leap year twenty-nine.
The tune carries it along, but fortunately for all concerned, there is no way to post audio blog comments. At least not yet. The hand is way easier to remember if you weren’t in Mrs. Agnew’s singing class in third grade.
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I have never before known about the fist bump method so thank you! I always recite the poem that ritergal already shared. Which I find ironic since the poem seems like much more to memorize than just getting it in our heads how many days each month has right? Oddly, I have all the 31 day months memorized…it’s the 30s that I always second guess until saying the poem.
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Thanks for the bump method. My mother taught me the poem but I can never remember the second verse. Since it’s about February, forgetting it isn’t a big deal. But now I have a back-up.
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My husband used the bump method, but I rely on the poem. Never fails me.
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That’s what computers are for, though I suppose hands and fingers were the first computers.
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This is fun to see with your illustration, y!
I usually say out the whole chant – “Thirty days has September …” which can take a while.
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Gosh, I’m impressed to learn that so many people used the poem to remember the days. I can’t remember learning it, although if it appeared around 3rd grade (as it did for ritergal) there’s not a lot I remember from that grade. I’m still trying to figure out if Mrs. Zoller was my teacher then. Ha!
My 5th grade Math teacher did teach us several other chants, including one he made up so we could learn how to spell Albuquerque. He was apparently so disgusted that we made it all the way to 5th grade and still couldn’t fill out the City blank on the forms we filled out now and again. He also taught us how to spell our County: Bernalillo.
That poem is a mouthful. I’d probably never memorize it, plus I’ve been doing the knuckle method for so long now… 8)
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My God, I can just imagine the excitement this will create among the Polydactyls! :O
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What I can’t keep straight is this: if a certain date (say March 31) falls on a Wednesday this year, will it be a Tuesday or a Thursday next year? (Never mind leap years, where the day leap-frogs.)
And is there a way to use one’s toes to keep track of it?
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YB, I’ve always used the knuclkle method, too! But March is an easy one for me to remember, as my Mom’s Birthday was March 31. And I had a grandmother, whose Birthday was April 1st. (I never asked her if she got teased about her birth date. )
I don’t know about you, but I resented the fact that I was born in a city with such a long name, as it was hard to squeeze it into some forms…I’m a “jerk from albakerk” too!
Did you ever get called that? I did, of course I went to school in LA, and I guess my classmates thought of me as a hick from a small town. (sigh) Anyway, your post is quite clever, especially the photo with the hills and valleys all mapped out for us!
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I practice the poem method. Although I now have the “bump and valley” method to fall back on. Thanks for giving me yet another memory tool for a failing memory.
Happy April Fool’s Day tomorrow.
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yb, I can’t believe it, but I’ve never heard of the knuckle method. Only the poem. I like the knuckle/valley idea, but it seems too complicated to me. Maybe it’s because I have the poem memorized. (I like your cool art!) I do count haiku on my fingers though, so don’t know why this would seem harder to me. It’s fun to read people’s comments on this post.
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And here I thought the knuckle method was probably pretty widely known. 8)
It’s a simple method, but as with anything, comfort breeds familiarity. Is that a saying? Probably not, but you know what I mean. We like what we know.
Bob, glad to help that failing memory. I’ve taken to using a lot of mnemonics lately, whereas I never used to, for things like my Facebook password. And I just recently set up a new camera app account, and man, I’ve already forgotten the incredibly complicated mnemonic that I created for that one, so hopefully I’ll never need to remember it again.
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Marylin, a fellow knucklehead. 8) Wait a second, did I forget an absolutely important fact about you? Were you born in Albaturk, too?? OMG, if so, how could I have forgotten that? Gosh, I wonder if the knuckle method is an ABQ thing.
Yes, “the jerk from albakerk,” but now everyone calls it “Burque” with a mocho (thick) accent. You gotta roll the r just a bit.
I had fun making that photo for the post. What to use as a background? Well, I went with Picasso. I wonder if he used the knuckle method. 8)
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Heather, I read your comment this morning and for about two hours I walked around trying to come up with a witty comeback. Alas, I never did, and then I forgot to keep trying. But that’s how you are–you always make me smile for hours at a time.
Ben, I’m with you all the way. I want to figure out how we know whether the days land ahead or behind the same day last year. I think it’s ahead, which means March 31 was a Tues last year. But see, now I’m going to have to Google that or look at an old calendar, and that’s just not right. Surely there is a better way. If anyone knows of one, please enlighten those of us in the dark.
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Hey, I learned the poem, too … and how perfect to remember that today at the beginning of National Poetry Month!
Only the February verse I learned (way back in the day) was different:
“Except February which one in four
has 29 and no more.”
I wonder when it changed?
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That is an interesting twist, breathepeace. I tried searching a bit about the history of this poem, but all I found was the poem itself and a YouTube tutorial on the knuckle method. 8)
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that seems useful, I’ve never thought of that. I have problems remembering the days in a month I have to admit.
Thanks for your comment on my blog re Twitter for marketing, I agree, those people who do nothing but market are irritating and dull, but I see writers who are on Twitter and never actually tweet about their writing or their blogs (ie the subtle marketing which i think Twitter is so useful for) which seems like a lost opportunity.
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February has 28 days after January having 31 days. If you add those two months together, you get 59 combined days. In a calendar of 355 days, February normally had 28 days until Julius Caesar who gave February 29 days (30 days in leap years), according to tradition, Augustus shortened February to give his month August 31 days. Today, February has 28 days (29 days in leap years).
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I know people who use this method to remember. I don’t know, I always just think…It’s every other month 31 then 30 with the exception being that July and Aug are both 31 and of course Feb. If I can’t remember this always gets me back on track.
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This is a cool way to remember that. I learned it when i was in 5th grade but i forgot all about it
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Let me teach you something. The Gregorian calendar is like a piano. White keys are months with 31 days and black keys are months that don’t have 31 days. The F key is January.
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Sebastian. I like that one. 12 months, 12 pitches–perfect. You could even keep going and each octave would be a new year. That’s better than hands, which don’t have quite the right number of fingers, knuckles, or valleys.
My grandfather showed me another way too. You hold up your left hand, palm facing your face. You put your right index finger on the end of your left thumb. That’s January. You slide your right index finger down into the webby flesh between your left thumb and your left index finger. That’s February. Keep going until you get to July (your left ring finger). Place August on the same left ring finger and start coming back until you reach December, which is your left index finger again. All the fingertips have 31 days. The cool thing about this system is that there are two kinds of gaps. February is the low gap, which matches February’s having fewer than 30 days. The other gaps are all the same, 30 days each.
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Oh it hits me too ,so I use a song.30 days are September ,april ,june& November allt the rest have 31days exept february which has 29 days ona leap year..!!!!!!
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February should have 30 days in a non leap year and 31 in a leap year because the rest have 30&31 days meaning January-march-may-july-august-October&December have 31 days and april-june-september&November have 30 days
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thank you so much.i have been told of this type of monthly counting during my childhood but i did n,t used it because i have some doubts if it was a good method.Now i trust this method through your explanation and it is such an interesting.Once again,THANK YOU VERY MUCH…morinda tarisimbi (Vanuatu).
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[…] to posts: How Many Days in the Month of March – 30 or 31?, Lithograph […]
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