Have humans always counted down this much in the past? I have a sense that we're a bit frenetic with counting down to various events, moments occasions, etc.
Are we counting down? Yes - we're counting down to the Solstice on Saturday Dec 21 at 11:19pm EST. And between then and the year-end there are meteor showers, the Moon at perigee (closest point along orbit to the earth), the new moon on December 26th, the conjunction of the Moon and Saturn, conjunction of the Moon and Venus.
Looking at the sentence I've written, I then started to wonder about capitalizations. So I went over to one of the authorities - the MLA Style Center. This isn't simple:
When Merriam-Webster indicates that a term is “capitalized” or “usually capitalized,” the MLA capitalizes the term in its publications. When Merriam-Webster indicates that a term is “often capitalized,” our practice varies. We usually lowercase sun, moon, and earth, but, following The Chicago Manual of Style, when the does not precede the name of the planet, when earth is not part of an idiomatic expression, or when other planets are mentioned, we capitalize earth:
The earth revolves around the sun.
The astronauts landed on the moon.
The space shuttle will return to Earth next year.
The four planets closest to the sun—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—compose the inner solar system.
I shouldn't worry about this - most people are mediocre at writing a sentence. But let's find out what the norms are. It doesn't make sense for planets to be lower case and countries to be capitalized as proper names. So I checked out the NASA Style Guide "HERE" - it references the Chicago Manual of Style as the authority. I can't access it, though. However the NASA guidelines are clear. So I decided on the NASA guidelines and not the MLA Style Center even though I am not writing a scientific paper.
So I can move on to some Moon jokes and hope I have the correct capitalizations to match the NASA style guidelines:
Q: What holds the Moon up? A: Moonbeams.
Q: How do you know when the Moon is going broke? A: When it's down to its last quarter.
Q: What did the Moon say to his therapist? A: I'm just going through a phase.
Q: How does a man on a moon get his haircut? A: Eclipse it.
And we haven't even got to winter, and I am referencing Percy Bysshe Shelley for our picture today: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
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