The Discordian or Erisian calendar is an alternative

calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...

used by some adherents of

Discordianism Discordianism is a religion, philosophy, or paradigm centered on Eris, a.k.a. Discordia, the Goddess of chaos. Discordianism uses archetypes or ideals associated with her. It was founded after the 1963 publication of its "holy book," the ''Pri ...

. It is specified on page 00034 of the ''

Principia Discordia The ''Principia Discordia'' is the first published Discordian religious text. It was written by Greg Hill ( Malaclypse the Younger) with Kerry Wendell Thornley (Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst) and others. The first edition was printed allegedly usi ...

''. The Discordian year 1 YOLD is 1166 BC. (Elsewhere in the ''Principia Discordia'', it is mentioned that the

Curse of Greyface Discordianism is a religion, philosophy, or paradigm centered on Eris, a.k.a. Discordia, the Goddess of chaos. Discordianism uses archetypes or ideals associated with her. It was founded after the 1963 publication of its "holy book," the ''Pri ...

occurred in 1166 BC. As a reference, AD is YOLD (Year of Our Lady of Discord). The abbreviation "YOLD" is not used in the ''Principia'', though the phrase "Year of Our Lady of Discord" is mentioned once.

Composition

As described in the ''Principia Discordia'', the Discordian calendar has five 73-day seasons:

Chaos Chaos or CHAOS may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional elements * Chaos (''Kinnikuman'') * Chaos (''Sailor Moon'') * Chaos (''Sesame Park'') * Chaos (''Warhammer'') * Chaos, in ''Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy'' * Cha ...

Discord Discord is a VoIP and instant messaging social platform. Users have the ability to communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media and files in private chats or as part of communities called "servers".The developer documenta ...

Confusion In medicine, confusion is the quality or state of being bewildered or unclear. The term "acute mental confusion"

Bureaucracy The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...

, and The Aftermath. The Discordian year is aligned with the Gregorian calendar and begins on January 1, thus Chaos 1, YOLD is January 1, Gregorian. The Erisian week consists of five days: Sweetmorn, Boomtime, Pungenday, Prickle-Prickle, and Setting Orange. The days of the week are named after the five basic Discordian elements: Sweet, Boom, Pungent, Prickle, and Orange. There are 73 of these weeks per year and every year begins with Sweetmorn. Every fourth year in the Discordian calendar, starting in 2 YOLD, an extra day is inserted between Chaos 59 and Chaos 60 called St. Tib's Day. This is because 4 years + 1 day = 5, a holy number, but the Discordian

leap year A leap year (also known as an intercalary year or bissextile year) is a calendar year that contains an additional day (or, in the case of a lunisolar calendar, a month) added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical year or s ...

also coincides with the Gregorian one. The result of this is that any given day of the year in the Discordian calendar may be taken to correspond to the same day of the year in the

Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years dif ...

, and vice versa, although some users of the calendar believe that it is tied to the

Julian calendar The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandr ...

and so will diverge from the Gregorian in 3266 YOLD (AD 2100). St. Tib's Day is considered outside the Discordian week. There are Apostle Holydays on the 5th day of each season, named after the 5 Discordian apostles: Mungday, for Hung Mung; Mojoday, for Dr. Van Van Mojo; Syaday, for Sri Syadasti; Zaraday, for Zarathud; and Maladay, for Malaclypse the Elder. There are also Season Holydays on the 50th of each season: Chaoflux, Discoflux, Confuflux, Bureflux, and Afflux. Only these eleven dates are named in the ''Principia Discordia''; however, Discordians have felt free to invent other holidays which have become popular to varying degrees. Some of these include Discordians for Jesus/Love Your Neighbor Day (March 25/Discord 11); Jake Day (April 6/Discord 23 or occasionally May 23/Discord 70), a day to send tongue-in-cheek letters, emails or faxes to an official or bureaucracy; Saint

Camping Camping is an outdoor activity involving overnight stays away from home, either without shelter or using basic shelter such as a tent, or a recreational vehicle. Typically, participants leave developed areas to spend time outdoors in more nat ...

's Day (May 21/Discord 68), a day to make End of Days predictions and share them in social media; Eris Day (May 23/Discord 70), a day to gather and celebrate Goddess;

Towel Day Towel Day is celebrated every year on 25 May as a tribute to the author Douglas Adams by his fans. On this day, fans openly carry a towel with them, as described in Adams' ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', to demonstrate their appreciat ...

(May 25/Discord 72); Mid Year's Day (July 2/Confusion 37); X-Day (July 5/Confusion 40); and Multiversal Underwear Day (August 10/Bureaucracy 3).

Implementations

ddate is a program that prints the current date in the Discordian calendar. It was a part of the

util-linux is a standard package distributed by the Linux Kernel Organization for use as part of the Linux operating system. A fork, (with meaning "next generation"), was created when development stalled, but has been renamed back to , and is the offic ...

package containing basic system utilities. As such, it had been included at least since 1994 in nearly all

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

s. In August 2011 however, one of the maintainers of util-linux made ddate optional, and by default omitted. In October 2012, ddate was completely removed from util-linux. The ddate program now has an upstream source. There was some controversy, but in the end, anyone wishing to reintroduce ddate to a distribution will have to create a separate package based on the new upstream. This has been done for Debian,

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

Fedora Linux Fedora Linux is a Linux distribution developed by the Fedora Project. Fedora contains software distributed under various free and open-source licenses and aims to be on the leading edge of open-source technologies. Fedora is the upstream source ...

, and Gentoo Linux for example. There are many other programs with similar functionality, such as HodgePodge, an Android widget. Discordian-calendar is an implementation using Java 8's date and time classes.

References

External links

'ddate' Linux man page @ die.net

Discordian Calendar described in the ''Principia Discorda''

Discordian Holydays in vCalendar/iCalendar format

Holydays from the Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia

Java sources for Discordian date calculation

* ttps://hyperdiscordia.church/dateconvert.html Online Gregorian-to-Erisian Date Converter
Online Thuddite-to-Discordian (and vice versa) calendar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Discordian Calendar Calendar eras

Calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...

Specific calendars Discordian holidays