Did you know that today is the only day of the year that is also a clause? And that it can be argued that it is a sentence, with the pronoun implied?
March 4th.
March fourth.
March forth.
Go, march forth and do battle with the forces of evil.
See? Cool date. Try that sentence with any other date of the year. You won’t get the same effect.
Go, january seventh and do battle with the forces of evil.
Yes, that was stupid. Leave out the “Go,” and it’s even dumber.
January seventh and do battle with the forces of evil!
Try it with the same day, and it still sucks.
January forth and do battle with the forces of evil!
Whereas:
March forth and do battle with the forces of evil!
totally rocks.
March Fourth. My second-favorite day of the month. And no, my favorite isn’t in the double digits. It’s the second, which is my little brother’s birthday. Not so little, and not so young, anymore. But happy birthday late, Dave. (Yeah, I called him, but got his voicemail.)
I’ll bet my brother marched forth and enjoyed his birthday.
Still works.
March first, and do battle with the forces of evil after. Nyah.
Paul, I was going to get all English major on your ass, but instead, I think I’ll go for the jugular.
Do you know, I’ve had this March 4th thing since college? I wrote at least part of my weekly column on it, and none of the English teachers who read my column weekly chimed in on March first. (I know they read my column, because they all knew who I was on the first day of class, and often had something to say about my not writing about them, please.)
More than twenty years, Paul. I’ve been holding onto the March 4th sentence thing for over twenty years.
And you take it away in one fell “nyah.”
I hope you feel good about that, buster.
And for the record, March Forth kicks March First’s butt. Please. March forth is commanding. March first is an entreaty.
Thinking ahead to the meat-up next weekend, I’m reminded of a restaurant in DC’s diminutive and shrinking Chinatown, Eat First, whose menu contains an explanation that the name derives from an old Chinese proverb. The sense of the proverb is akin to the Jewish teaching about what you should do if you are in the midst of planting a tree and hear a report of the arrival of Moshiach.
Extending the proverb yields “Eat First, March Second.” It’s better than “March First” because it incorporates your FAVORITE day of the month. Unfortunately, it shows (by recursion) that EVERY day in March can be a clause.
Your original post also reminds me of an old riddle: What is the dentist’s favorite time of day?
Anyway, Meryl, it’s Adar, so be happy.
I’m properly shamed. I retract the “Nyah.”
Paul and Meryl–
I just Googled something that I dimly remembered from a New York Times Magazine article about philosopher Saul Kripke from maybe a quarter-century ago.
The story is that some philologist is giving a lecture and making the point that while a double-negative sometimes connotes the negative and sometimes connotes the positive, a double-positive never connotes the negative. At which point Sidney Morgenbesser loudly cracks from the audience: “Yeah, yeah!” Boom! Instant deflation.
The web always fact checks your ass. In lawyer’s terms, Meryl assumed the risk when she made her post.
Meryl, your retort reminded me of the final showdown between Adam Goldberg and Andy Dick in The Hebrew Hammer. When you’re cornered, pile on the guilt. Master of Juvenile Scorn doesn’t begin to do you justice!
And there’s one day of the year that’s an antisemitic excuse for falsehood:
July First.
Ben F: If we’re being anecdotally inclined, this one (supposedly true) pops into my memory:
In the course of a debate at the House of Commons one day, an MP attacked his opponent with “The Honorable Gentleman doesn’t have the manners of a pig.” The Speaker of the House stepped in to enforce the rules of behaviour, and demanded a retraction. Whereupon the MP rose again and said “Mr. Speaker, I offer my apologies. The Honorable Gentleman does have the manners of a pig.”
And Carlos May continues to be the only big league ballplayer with his birthday–May 17–on his uiform.
Oh darnit I was about to make some cute sentence with “May one” but then I remembered that in English it would be “May first” so scratch that … Stupid me thinking in French and directly translating to English, grumblll…
It can still be done, Micol:
“You must eat your spinach, but you may first have a bonbon.”
Meryl may regret having opened this whole box of Pandoras. As for translating from the French, you’re way ahead of me. I can neither think in French nor translate to it.
In case you hadn’t heard, March fo(u)rth is now a special day in certain circles.
March Fo(u)rth for GMs Day. A day set aside for role gamers to honor the hard working (and vastly underappreciated) ladies and gents who work their butts off to provide a few hours entertainment for a gaggle of clods who wouldn’t know a clever plotline from a CSI script.
On March Fo(u)rth for GM’s Day the players are encouraged to show their appreciation by giving their GM a gift or similar token of affection. Offering to pay for munchies suffices in most circles. Though some groups have gone so far as to actually buy something of value (Agate dice are actually among the cheapest of such gifts).
So if you happen to know a gamer, next year you may want to help him honor his GM. :)