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Richard: For many listeners, the 20th of December last year was just another date.
Jackie: But in fact, it was considered a 'magic date' and for this week's podcastsinenglish.com we're talking about magic dates and why 2013 and the rest of the century is unlucky for not having so many.
Richard: Mmm. So why was the 20th of December lucky, or magic? Well, the reason the date was 20.12.2012.
Jackie: Right
Richard: And throughout history, people have placed a great deal of importance to the numbers of the dates.
Jackie: Mmm, yes. So 20.12.2012 is a repetitive date, Richard, okay? So 10.10.10 is another example.
Richard: Yes. The 10th of October 2010.
Jackie: Okay. Now another example of a so-called magic dates are successive ones, for example 8.9.10.
Richard: Yes. The 8th of September 2010.
Jackie: And then a 3rd category are the palindromes, the numbers that read the same from left to right as right to left. For example 01.1.10.
Richard: Which was the 1st of January 2010.
Jackie: Yes, now of course that was 01 for the date...
Richard: ...and just 1 for the month.
Jackie: Exactly and also it was day, month, year, which is what the Europeans do and not month, day, year, which is what the Americans do.
Richard: Exactly, yes.
Jackie: Yeah. No but going back to...
Richard: Well, they'll have their own, the Americans, they've just got different magic numbers to the Europeans.
Jackie: Yeah, yeah. So going back to the repetitive ones, Richard, so the last one that we've had just recently was 12.12.12.
Richard: 12th of December 2012.
Jackie: And there won't be another one of those until the next century because there's only 12 months in a year.
Richard: I think that is the key to a lot of the magic numbers.
Jackie: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um... and then there are some repetitive numbers which are all the same number of course: 1.11.11.
Richard: The first of November 2011.
Jackie: And the next one is 2.2.22.
Richard: [laughs] Which is [the] second of February 2022.
Jackie: Yeah, long way away and then that's it for a long time. And then the years - we've already mentioned 20.12.2012, haven't we? There won't be any of those now until the next century.
Richard: Mmmm. So that's the repetitive ones. Um... what are the other ones?
Jackie: Well, the last successive one...
Richard: Right
Jackie: Do you remember? The last one was 10.11.12.
Richard: Which is the 10th of November 2012.
Jackie: The next one is coming up quite soon: 11.12.13.
Richard: Oooh, the 11th of December 2013.
Jackie: But then there won't be any more, till the next century.
Richard: Well, I'll have to put that in my diary then.
Jackie: And then the palindromes, there are lots of palindromes um...
Richard: So when's the next one, Jackie?
Jackie: Well, Richard, what's the date today?
Richard: 3rd of January 2013.
Jackie: So you could write that as 3.1.13. So today's a lucky day. The third of January 2013.
Richard: And I also think 2013 is going to be a lucky year.
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