We hope you’ve been enjoying our in-depth reports on the months of the year. And if you haven’t, we apologize because we’ve already written this one, which is a startling exposé of the month coming up.
June. What can be said of it? More than you might think.
- The Start of Winter. That’s if you live in, say, Argentina, or South Africa, or Australia. For the 90 percent of the human race that lives above the equator, of course, June marks the beginning of summer. Unless you live in the American South, in which case summer began around late February. Unofficially. Officially, it starts June 20. Among other things, that means — in the words of the Immortal Bard Alice Kooper — School’s Out All Summer. So brace yourselves. Also, it will be really, really hot. Bottom line, June is the start of several things, including…
- Hurricane Season. Once again, brace yourselves. In fact, “brace yourselves” seems to be developing as the underlying theme of this post. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration won’t officially announce its forecast for the season until May 23, but some climate scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have already predicted that “the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season will produce the most named storms on record,” according to The Washington Post. “Named storms” being code for “storms you want nothing to do with.”
- Midsummer — You’ll never look at Shakespeare the same way once we tell you this. Midsummer doesn’t come in the middle of summer, as a sensible American might assume. In England, it will be on Monday, June 24 — right after the solstice, which is the start of the season, and not the “mid” of anything. How can that be? Don’t look at us because we don’t know. But you can look at Wikipedia, which says, “The name ‘midsummer’ is attested in Old English as midsumor, and refers to the time around the summer solstice. Astronomically, the solstice falls on 21 June, but traditionally, in northern Europe, the solstice and midsummer was reckoned as the night of 23–24 June, with summer beginning on May Day. Don’t get it? Again, neither do we.
- What’s in a name? It comes from the calendar used in the days of the Roman Republic. It’s named for Juno, the queen of the Roman gods and goddesses. The Greeks called her Hera. She’s the wife of Jupiter, and here’s where we get to the “brace yourselves” part — she was also Jupiter’s sister. Apparently, that was legal on Mount Olympus.
- The Best Rhyming Month. As writers of sappy songs have long demonstrated, offering such examples as moon, croon, spoon, boon, soon, tune, swoon, strewn, dune, immune, balloon, cocoon, cartoon, bassoon. OK, maybe not bassoon. That probably fits into the category of less-popular rhymes, including loon, goon, prune, baboon, harpoon, doubloon, platoon, saloon. But you get our point. See the video below. Anyway, lots of rhymes. Try doing that with February. Or April.
- Military History. This is the time of year when wars that had come to a halt during the winter have really heated up. The most memorable of these for most of us is “D-Day,” the sixth of June. Technically, the term “d-day” is used by military planners to indicate the key moment in kicking off any major operation, but we call this one “D-Day,” capitalized, probably because the Allies managed to put 175,000 troops onto those French beaches in that one day, even though the Germans really, really, didn’t want them to.
- Weddings. This is the traditional month for getting married. If you’re just learning this and you have the intention of marrying, this may be a little late to get started on the arrangements. But that’s OK. It’s not a rule, just a tradition. You can get married whenever you want.
That’s about it, for now. You can start bracing yourselves for the inevitable July report now…
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