Writer's Block: Will he or won't he?

[conuly]

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Useless question. I try to explain this every year, and every year not enough people hear me, clearly.

The Groundhog Day tradition runs like this:

IF he sees his shadow, it's six more weeks of winter. IF he does NOT see his shadow, it's six more weeks until spring. The first is supposed to mean "long winter" and the second "long spring", but anybody with any sort of mathematical ability whatsoever should be able to tell you that the two statements - six weeks until spring, six weeks of winter - add up to the same thing. This is what I like to call a joke, except that some people don't understand that and take it all too seriously. And even when they don't (because really, that's absurd) they still do in that they think that the holiday theoretically means something when really it doesn't.

Now, as it happens, we celebrate today because it's halfway between the winter solstice (Midwinter) and the spring equinox. We have six weeks on either side. This is something no groundhog can change - in six weeks, we'll all be talking about how we can balance eggs on their ends but only on the equinox, an equally silly statement.

So go! Tell your friends!

Comments

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the explanation, I'd only ever heard the "six more weeks of winter" part and never the "full" version. Thus naturally I assumed that if it didn't see its shadow, there would be... something different, because otherwise where's the point? Unless of course it's just a bit of a joke. So, um, definitely thanks!

I am now wondering whether this tradition somehow got mixed up with the German "dormouse" tradition ("If there's rain on Dormouse Day (June 27th), there will be rain for seven weeks straight"), which would explain why people think it actually matters whether the groundhog sees its shadow or not.

I don't know the "balance eggs on their ends" tradition, so I'm also curious about that, now...

[conuly]

People sometimes balance eggs on their ends for the equinox. This is all well and good, but then they say that you can ONLY do it on the equinox (or even only on the spring equinox) which is, of course, a load of bull. You can do it any time of year if you have a patient hand.