March 31, 1999

Definition of "Blue Moon" Corrected
Filed at 3:46 p.m. EST
By The Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) -- Once in a blue moon, a widely accepted definition has to be rewritten.

Take the term "blue moon" itself.

For half a century, it’s been known as the second full moon in a month, like the one that appeared Wednesday. But that's wrong, and the editors of Sky & Telescope say it's their fault: The magazine incorrectly defined the term 53 years ago.

"I hate to admit it," said Roger Sinnott, associate editor of Sky & Telescope.

Sinnott blamed the goof on an amateur astronomer.

James Hugh Pruett wrote a 1946 piece for the magazine after apparently misinterpreting a complex 1937 article in the Maine Farmer's Almanac that essentially, but not clearly, said a blue moon occurs when a season has four full moons, rather than the usual three. Pruett mistakenly thought that meant a blue moon is the second full moon within the same month.

Pruett's mistake went unnoticed for decades. A 1980 National Public Radio story about blue moons used the wrong definition. In 1986, the board game Trivial Pursuit repeated the error. When two full moons appeared in May 1988, "radio stations and newspapers everywhere carried an item on this bit of 'old folklore',"   folklorist Philip Hiscock wrote in the magazine’s March issue.

Sky & Telescope, based in Cambridge, discovered the error when it was working on an article about how January and March of this year featured what would have been two blue moons by Pruett’s definition.

Although Sky & Telescope’s editors think Pruett's mistake led to the popular modern mis-definition of "blue moon," it's unclear where the Maine Farmer's Almanac came up with the rule. The almanac is defunct.

Although the term "Blue Moon" has existed for centuries, Sinnott said his research of almanacs dating to the early 1800s found no precise definitions until 1937.

By either definition -- Pruett's or the almanac's -- blue moons occur about every two or three years, Sinnott said. The last blue moon as defined by the almanac was in June 1997. The next will be in February 2000.

Although purists may subscribe to the almanac's point of view, Sinnott thinks Pruett's error will prevail. Pruett died in 1955.

"This meaning is so entrenched now. Nothing we can do is going to put the genie back in the bottle," Sinnott said. "Our big mistake in 1946 has really caught on and there's no turning back."

Well, we certainly have had a few interesting definitions of the term "Blue Moon".  We wonder if the above press release will be the final word in this saga............
The Editors