Patterico's Pontifications

11/30/2006

Do You Know What Day You Were Born?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:28 pm

My 6-year-old daughter just asked me what day she was born.

Not what date. What day — of the week.

I didn’t know. And I didn’t know for myself. (Or my wife or son.)

Do you?

P.S. Turns out she was born on a Tuesday.

UPDATE: Commenter sharon notes that she knew the day of the week she was born, from the poem:

Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go.
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
But the child born on the Sabbath Day,
Is fair and wise and good and gay.

Now that sharon has mentioned it, I remember the fact that I was a Wednesday’s child. Which is about right: I’m pretty cranky.

42 Comments

  1. Yes, I can tell you the day of the week all 3 of my children were born on, plus I actually do know the day of the week I was born on. The reason for the 3 kids is obvious; I gave birth to them so it was unforgettable for me. But the reason I know the day I was born on was because of the poem “Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace…” and I asked my mother which day I was born on.

    Plus, you can look at an online calendar and see if your memory gets faulty. ;)

    Comment by sharon (dfeb10) — 11/30/2006 @ 8:27 pm

  2. I was born on a sunday

    Comment by krazy kagu (fc3721) — 11/30/2006 @ 8:32 pm

  3. I was born on Easter Sunday. My son was born on a Friday.

    But I don’t know any others.

    Comment by tommy (c08ff9) — 11/30/2006 @ 8:47 pm

  4. there are calendar savants out there, you just give them a date and they’ll tell you what day it is. i’m sure it’s a simple enough algorith to learn if somebody cared enough.

    Comment by assistant devil's advocate (29401e) — 11/30/2006 @ 9:10 pm

  5. whoops, “algorithm”

    Comment by assistant devil's advocate (29401e) — 11/30/2006 @ 9:10 pm

  6. Wednesday, of course.

    Comment by Allah (bab333) — 11/30/2006 @ 10:02 pm

  7. I just checked myself, my wife and my son; perfect correspondence with the poem. It figures that I was born on a Saturday.

    Comment by RJN (e12f22) — 11/30/2006 @ 10:03 pm

  8. I was born on a Sunday. As was my wife. And daughter.

    Comment by aunursa (7ee4ed) — 11/30/2006 @ 10:05 pm

  9. Thursday. Guess I’ve got a long way to go. Wasn’t it enough to move from the Midwest to California once, from there to and from Mexico once, to and from Europe twice, to and from Chicago afterward, and finally to the other friggin’ coast?

    I’m still born on Thursday, so I guess not.

    Comment by Xrlq (1e3b05) — 11/30/2006 @ 10:24 pm

  10. Saturday.

    Which pretty much proves that’s bull.

    Comment by See-Dubya (90e77e) — 11/30/2006 @ 10:41 pm

  11. Wednesday, it turns out. It’s something I’d never really thought about before.

    Comment by Sean M. (db71f3) — 11/30/2006 @ 10:46 pm

  12. In fact, I know the day and time. Saturday at 11PM. Mom was trying to have me on Memorial day, and missed it by that much.

    Comment by CraigC (1465f4) — 11/30/2006 @ 10:50 pm

  13. Full of woe!? Damn, that sucks.

    I always thought I was full of…well, you know.

    Comment by Russell (a32796) — 12/1/2006 @ 12:51 am

  14. I too was born on a Thursday Xlrq. Maybe this just proves we have some “longevity”.

    Comment by Rovin (317330) — 12/1/2006 @ 5:23 am

  15. Friday–which either means I’m with SeeDub and the poem’s bull, or else the fact that it was a Friday the 13th screwed with the poem’s karma.

    Comment by Anwyn (4c21b1) — 12/1/2006 @ 6:00 am

  16. Monday. I think they may have lied to me about my birthday.

    Comment by htom (412a17) — 12/1/2006 @ 6:18 am

  17. Tuesday, but I have never been able to dance. If it means the other kind of grace, I was consecrated as a child.

    Comment by nk (54c569) — 12/1/2006 @ 7:51 am

  18. I’m about as “full of woe” as any kid I know.

    And I can rhyme.

    Comment by Leviticus (3c2c59) — 12/1/2006 @ 9:13 am

  19. Here is a site that will show you the days of whatever year you are interested in….

    http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/

    Comment by jimf (b5210d) — 12/1/2006 @ 9:25 am

  20. Another one full of woe here; I never realized before that it was all my mother’s fault!

    Comment by Dana (3e4784) — 12/1/2006 @ 10:01 am

  21. Given the way the meaning of words has changed, does that mean that anyone born on Sunday reads Andrew Sullivan?

    Comment by Dana (3e4784) — 12/1/2006 @ 10:03 am

  22. Sunday…Mother’s Day in fact :)

    Comment by LordNazh (d282eb) — 12/1/2006 @ 11:00 am

  23. oh and I don’t read Andrew Sullivan but am a happy person nontheless

    Comment by LordNazh (d282eb) — 12/1/2006 @ 11:00 am

  24. Well, I’ll be damned. I looked it up on the calendar, and it turns out that I was born on Thursday night. All these years Mom had it wrong. Or maybe I’m just a bad listener.

    Comment by CraigC (1465f4) — 12/1/2006 @ 11:02 am

  25. Father’s Day Sunday.

    Interesting note. Your birthday falls on your birth day of the week 6 years, 11 years, 17 years, 28 years, 34 years, 45 years, etc.
    or
    11, 17, 28, 34, 45 after your birth. This has something to do with leap years.

    Comment by kimsch (127da6) — 12/1/2006 @ 1:52 pm

  26. Kimsch: what if you were born on February 29th?

    Comment by Dana (e7aa47) — 12/1/2006 @ 5:28 pm

  27. That’s a good one. I’m not sure. My sister married on February 29th…

    2000 Feb 29th was a Tuesday, 2004 was a Sunday, 2008 will be a Friday, 2012 Wednesday, 2016 Monday, 2020 Saturday, 2024 Thursday, 2028 Tuesday again – so every 28 years your birth-day-of-the-week is the same if you are a leap baby.

    and there was a mistake in my post above, the 11 shouldn’t be there in the first set of numbers…

    Comment by kimsch (127da6) — 12/1/2006 @ 6:01 pm

  28. Well, duh. Sunday for me, silly!

    Comment by Gleen Groonwald (08e1e8) — 12/1/2006 @ 9:35 pm

  29. Kimsch: Years evenly divisible by 100 but not by 400 are not leap years; falls apart again for 2100. :)

    Comment by Dana (3e4784) — 12/2/2006 @ 5:06 am

  30. “Saturday’s child is bright and bonnie and gay” (45 years ago).

    Comment by michael (223074) — 12/2/2006 @ 6:46 am

  31. Sunday’s child…

    I was going through my RSS feedreader (Bloglines – it ain’t perfect, but it suits me), and saw Patterico’s post about his daughter, who was inquiring on what day she was born. Thanks to one of his commenters, he reprinted…

    Trackback by CatHouse Chat (72c8fd) — 12/2/2006 @ 7:43 am

  32. Dana, I won’t be alive then, so…

    Comment by kimsch (127da6) — 12/2/2006 @ 7:46 pm

  33. My parents often told me I was born on a Friday. It was trash day, and they didn’t get the trash out the night before.

    From the Microsoft Excel help file:

    WEEKDAY(serial_number,return_type)

    Serial_number is a sequential number that represents the date of the day you are trying to find. Dates should be entered by using the DATE function, or as results of other formulas or functions. For example, use DATE(2008,5,23) for the 23rd day of May, 2008. Problems can occur if dates are entered as text.

    Comment by Karl Lembke (ff486c) — 12/4/2006 @ 2:56 pm

  34. 11/13/1984 Friday 13 11:53 hunter moon

    Comment by Shadow (cb30bb) — 6/23/2007 @ 1:07 pm

  35. My grandmother was born on Easter Sunday (3/31/1918)and her mother said it had a very special meaning for her. But she never actually never told me what it was other than it had a religious basis. Do you know? Thanks Rose

    Comment by Rose Koneski (eee719) — 6/24/2007 @ 11:51 am

  36. i was born on a sunday on may 19 1991

    Comment by sacha (743467) — 11/1/2007 @ 12:02 pm

  37. Whats really weird… I was born on a thursday and my First husband was born on a thursday and my children from that marriage was born on a thursday, makes ya wonder if families are born on the same day .

    Comment by Dyan (7f100f) — 1/4/2008 @ 5:15 pm

  38. I WAS BORN ON GOOD FRIDAY

    Comment by Quin (3d82ec) — 1/9/2008 @ 12:18 pm

  39. That’s so cute.
    My mom was talking about that poem so I decided to look it up.
    I was born on Sunday.
    :D

    Comment by Rebecca (0ec473) — 2/22/2008 @ 8:10 pm

  40. yay i was born on sunday!!!

    Comment by chloe (f241c1) — 3/27/2008 @ 12:45 pm

  41. My grand son was born on sunday 27th April 2008!!

    Comment by Elly Lacroute (b44a07) — 6/12/2008 @ 2:15 pm

  42. my name akua means i was born on wednesday so i dont have to refer to any calenda. that is the naming system of the akans on Ghana

    Comment by akua (43863f) — 8/8/2008 @ 1:19 am

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