This week is palindrome week

Independence Day is over, but don’t fret. There’s another holiday to celebrate this week. You won’t get any days off, but Palindrome Week doesn’t come around often. And people are excited:

Palindrome Week marks the week and a half where the dates read the same forward and backward. Check it out:

7/10/17

7/11/17

7/12/17

7/13/17

7/14/17

7/15/17

7/16/17

7/17/17

7/18/17

7/19/17

After this year, there will only be two more Palindrome Weeks this century. Time and Date explained the frequency of this cool calendar phenomenon: “As long as you write your date in the m-dd-yy format, every century has 9 years with 10 Palindrome Days in a row. These years are always in the second decade of the century. For example, every year between 2011-2019, 2111-2119, and 2211-2219 will have 10 consecutive Palindrome Days.”

A palindrome is usually used as a descriptor in literature. Some popular palindromes, spelled the same front-to-back or back-to-front, include “Amore, Roma” and “Desserts, I stressed!” Regular words and names can be palindromes, too, such as madam, Anna, noon and kayak. They also can get silly, like “A Toyota’s a Toyota,” “Rats at a bar grab at a star” and “Lager, sir, is regal.” Those are all courtesy of Palindrome List.

“The word ‘palindrome’ was coined from the Greek roots palin (‘again’) and dromos (‘way, direction’) by the English writer Ben Jonson in the 17th century,” according to the site.

We think Palindrome Week calls for a toast. Though you may want to think twice before offering up a “cheers” to Palindrome Week with friends from other countries. That’s because many would-be revelers are quick to remind those from the U.S. that the way we write our dates makes us a little weird.

For example, in the U.K., July 12, 2017 would be abbreviated to 12/7/17, not 7/12/17, so it’s no longer a palindrome. Another wrench in the works would be if you use the full year designation, as 7/12/2017 doesn’t work either.

But let’s not think about that. Let us have our holiday!