There's thirty days in September...

[conuly]

April, June, and November. Okay, so I guess the day after May 30 is May 31! Whew, glad that's settled.

Poll #24104 Days of the month

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 143

View Respondents

What method do you use to remember which months have 31 days?

View Answers

That rhyme
88 (61.5%)

Another English language mnemonic
2 (1.4%)

The knuckle trick
32 (22.4%)

I don't, I look at a calendar
18 (12.6%)

Some mnemonic in another language
0 (0.0%)

IDK, I just do
20 (14.0%)

Other
5 (3.5%)

******

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Comments

[potofsoup]

for "Other" -- I just remember that the odd months are the long months until July, then it flips to the even months that are the long months, due to the July/August hump ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[hamsterwoman]

I'm watching the poll results with interest, because I remember back in high school, when we were learning the names of months in Italian, my Italian teacher explained the knuckle trick, and only I and another girl who had been born in Europe knew it -- none of the other kids in our class (IIRC white American, East Asian, Filipino, and I think Latino) knew what she was talking about. I hadn't realized it wasn't more widely used that that!

Meanwhile, I don't find the English mnemonic at all useful and mostly have to back-derive it from knowing which months have 30 days via the knuckle trick :P

[julian]

Mine's slightly (only very slightly) different.

"30 days hath September, April June and November."

[conuly]

Yes, that's the more or less canonical version, but I feel silly saying "hath" when I never would normally, not to mention using that sentence structure.

[calimac]

Forced memorization, after years and years of having to deal with this.

[julian]

I don't mind, for some reason, writing these things out as "traditional canon" or whatever.

Since I only ever say the mnemonic out loud to myself, or my mother (who's the one who taught it to me), I am saved this particular embarrassment in day-to-day life.

[steorra]

I started with the knuckle trick, and from that learnt where the pairs of long months are: December-January and July-August, and other than that it alternates (with February of course being special).

By now I mostly just know which month has how many days, but if I'm ever in doubt, I check back to the trick.

Before I learnt the knuckle trick, someone had tried to teach me the rhyme but it didn't stick because I couldn't remember which months went in the rhyme.

[gatheringrivers]

Yea, I can't remember the rhyme to save my life some days. Knuckle trick for the win!

[greghousesgf]

there was a parody of it in Pogo:
Thirty days hath Septober,
April June and no wonder,
All the rest have peanie brinkle,
Except Grandma who rides a bicycle backwards.

[brokenallbroken]

Today's links aren't helping me tell the difference between Zuck and Kushner. They have the same face and the same personality! Are we sure they aren't clones?

[melannen]

I either use the nursery rhyme, or I go "Okay, it was a logical alternation until Julius screwed it up" and then work backwards from there.

[gingicat]

That reminds me of the old riddle - "which months have 28 days?"

[ioplokon]

Team knuckle trick!

Also, if you think yogurt has exploded in the US, try going to a French grocery. They have a whole AISLE of yogurt. It's like, a yogurt after every meal in France.

[ioplokon]

Learned the knuckle trick in grade school, which seems to have had the same demographics as your hs. No connection to Europe afaik, but we were right on the border, so maybe from Mexico??

Thank god for that trick tho bc generally I'm like, "30 days hath September. As for the rest, I can't remember!"

[conuly]

All of them, and most have more.

[monanotlisa]

I shudder at using a rhyme that doesn't properly scan tbh.

[archersangel]

i do the; 30 days hath september, april, june & november. all the rest have 31 except febuary which has 28 & in leap year 29.

never herd of the knuckle trick.

[conuly]

Make two fists, put them in front of you with the thumbs touching. Counting each dip and knuckle, starting on the left, you recite the months of the year. The knuckles are 31 days, the dips are February and 30 days.

[jessie_c]

I use the one from one of my Dad's old beer mugs:
"Thirsty days Hath September
April, June and November
All the Rest are thirsty too
Except for he who hath home brew!"

[low_delta]

I used to use the knuckles, but I've been around long enough I can just remember which are which.

[nrgburst]

Me too on both points, except my teacher taught us the last bit of the rhyme as "except February ALONE". It sounded super dramatic, I loved it.

[neotoma]

Huh, I learned a one-handed variant where you just reversed course when you ran out of knuckle.

[agoodwinsmith]

Ooo - that's different from mine.

One fist, start on the index finger knuckle, January knuckle, February dip, etc until pinkie knuckle, where you bounce twice for July August and then come back. Mean you can use your other index finger to keep track. Yes, some of us need to keep track. :)

I can't remember where/when I learned this, but it was after high school. Probably one of my workplaces.

[darkoshi]

I do it similar to that, but instead of bouncing and coming back, when I get to the last knuckle for July, I start back at the first again for August. I think one of my German relatives taught me it.

[hamsterwoman]

"30 days hath September. As for the rest, I can't remember!"

Me too, pretty much XD (the months don't go in order in the poem! and a whole bunch of different, wrong months could scan to the same rhythm! It's just not very useful to me...

Interesting that you learned the knuckle in elementary school! I have now deputized my daughter to poll her SoCal friends to see if they're more familiar with it.