I'm an astronomer, and I teach at a Catholic college (though I'm not religious myself).
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@riley @grb090423 @sundogplanets I didn't know he was called Dennis (sorry).
Anyway, thanks for sharing.
@nxskok He probably wasn't, in his days. He lived in the 'Civilised World'(tm); the still-chugging-on Roman Empire, where both Greek-speaking Romans and Latin-speaking Romans would have used some recognisable form of 'Dionysios' or 'Dionysius'. The 'Dennis' form probably only arose as the name got exported into the 'Barbarian World', probably starting from the semi-"wild", semi-Roman, Gaul of the day, where the two had some of the relatively friendliest encounters. Old Greek is a bit weird, as languages go, in that it has a marker suffix for the nominative case; most other European languages don't, and as the Greek and Latin words started to seep into the developing European languages, many of them kind of bulk-snapped the -os and -us nominative suffixes off from Roman words, and names. With that, and some vowel merging, Dionysios became Dennis for English (and Denis / Денис for Bulgarian). It's the same process that made 'Mathaios' into 'Matthew', 'Petros' into 'Peter', and 'Ioannes' into English 'John' and German 'Hans' and Slavic 'Ivan'.
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RE: https://telescoper.blog/2026/04/03/finding-easter/
I'm an astronomer, and I teach at a Catholic college (though I'm not religious myself).
I had absolutely no idea how complicated the date of Easter is. Wow.
@sundogplanets Perhaps more bizarre is that in Norway the deadline to take studded tyres off your car is the week after Easter.
Which is completely daft as the dates that Easter can fall on is in a range of a month.
The weather here can vary enormously between late March and late April.
We just had two nights where snow fell. It would make a lot more sense to just pick a date that reflects the change in the weather such as the 15th of April for the deadline.
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@sundogplanets What shocks me most of all is how the dude was born at Christmas and they nailed him to a cross 4 months later.
@rozeboosje @sundogplanets Wait till you learn that he was likely born in 5 BC
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@rozeboosje @sundogplanets Wait till you learn that he was likely born in 5 BC
@SamantazFox @sundogplanets I thought he was imaginary
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@nxskok He probably wasn't, in his days. He lived in the 'Civilised World'(tm); the still-chugging-on Roman Empire, where both Greek-speaking Romans and Latin-speaking Romans would have used some recognisable form of 'Dionysios' or 'Dionysius'. The 'Dennis' form probably only arose as the name got exported into the 'Barbarian World', probably starting from the semi-"wild", semi-Roman, Gaul of the day, where the two had some of the relatively friendliest encounters. Old Greek is a bit weird, as languages go, in that it has a marker suffix for the nominative case; most other European languages don't, and as the Greek and Latin words started to seep into the developing European languages, many of them kind of bulk-snapped the -os and -us nominative suffixes off from Roman words, and names. With that, and some vowel merging, Dionysios became Dennis for English (and Denis / Денис for Bulgarian). It's the same process that made 'Mathaios' into 'Matthew', 'Petros' into 'Peter', and 'Ioannes' into English 'John' and German 'Hans' and Slavic 'Ivan'.
@riley @grb090423 @sundogplanets thank you for the much better explanation than I deserved after all I did was almost-quote a line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
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@riley @grb090423 @sundogplanets thank you for the much better explanation than I deserved after all I did was almost-quote a line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
@nxskok Anyway, it turns out that there's a Saint Dionysios of Paris, also known as Saint Denis of Paris, who lived somewhen in the middle of the 200s, was, as the legend goes, beheaded in Lutetia the 250s, moved into his own abbey in the 600s, and as his career progressed, eventually rose to be a patron saint of France and headaches. Unfortunately, reliable data about his life is scarce; we don't even know for sure if the root cause of his final headache was Valerian.
But he lived about two centuries before Dionysios Exiguus, and moved from Rome to Lutetia, so odds are, if Dennis the Geek was discussed in Gaul in a local vernacular during his lifetime, he would already have been called 'Denis'.
St. Denis | France, Biography, Feast Day, & Facts | Britannica
St. Denis was allegedly the first bishop of Paris and an early Christian martyr. He is a patron saint of France and Paris. St. Denis is also venerated as one of the 14 Holy Helpers, a group of saints who were especially popular in the Middle Ages for their powers of intercession.
Encyclopedia Britannica (www.britannica.com)
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@nxskok Anyway, it turns out that there's a Saint Dionysios of Paris, also known as Saint Denis of Paris, who lived somewhen in the middle of the 200s, was, as the legend goes, beheaded in Lutetia the 250s, moved into his own abbey in the 600s, and as his career progressed, eventually rose to be a patron saint of France and headaches. Unfortunately, reliable data about his life is scarce; we don't even know for sure if the root cause of his final headache was Valerian.
But he lived about two centuries before Dionysios Exiguus, and moved from Rome to Lutetia, so odds are, if Dennis the Geek was discussed in Gaul in a local vernacular during his lifetime, he would already have been called 'Denis'.
St. Denis | France, Biography, Feast Day, & Facts | Britannica
St. Denis was allegedly the first bishop of Paris and an early Christian martyr. He is a patron saint of France and Paris. St. Denis is also venerated as one of the 14 Holy Helpers, a group of saints who were especially popular in the Middle Ages for their powers of intercession.
Encyclopedia Britannica (www.britannica.com)
@nxskok The world in which, if you had questions about the Computus Arguments in Paris, you couldn't just pick up your phone and call the abbot in Rome who knew the Easter stuff for clarification, was so weird. @grb090423 @sundogplanets
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@nxskok Anyway, it turns out that there's a Saint Dionysios of Paris, also known as Saint Denis of Paris, who lived somewhen in the middle of the 200s, was, as the legend goes, beheaded in Lutetia the 250s, moved into his own abbey in the 600s, and as his career progressed, eventually rose to be a patron saint of France and headaches. Unfortunately, reliable data about his life is scarce; we don't even know for sure if the root cause of his final headache was Valerian.
But he lived about two centuries before Dionysios Exiguus, and moved from Rome to Lutetia, so odds are, if Dennis the Geek was discussed in Gaul in a local vernacular during his lifetime, he would already have been called 'Denis'.
St. Denis | France, Biography, Feast Day, & Facts | Britannica
St. Denis was allegedly the first bishop of Paris and an early Christian martyr. He is a patron saint of France and Paris. St. Denis is also venerated as one of the 14 Holy Helpers, a group of saints who were especially popular in the Middle Ages for their powers of intercession.
Encyclopedia Britannica (www.britannica.com)
@riley @grb090423 @sundogplanets isn't there a district of Paris called Saint-Denis? I'll bet it has several pharmacies in case you should happen to get a headache while there.
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@riley @grb090423 @sundogplanets isn't there a district of Paris called Saint-Denis? I'll bet it has several pharmacies in case you should happen to get a headache while there.
@nxskok I don't know. I've never been to Paris outside the airport.
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@nxskok I don't know. I've never been to Paris outside the airport.
@riley @grb090423 @sundogplanets it is (per wikipedia) a suburb of Paris, with a basilica also named for Saint Denis.
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