How many months have 28 days?
If you’re not careful with this question when you’re reading it, you could very easily trip up and give an incorrect answer.
Most people interpret this question as: how many months have 28 days only ? And people are quick to answer 1 thinking that February is the only month with 28 days.
And this would be correct if that was what the question asked, but the question did not ask that.
As the question doesn’t contain the words “ only ” or “ exactly ” it deceives most with its simplicity.
How Many Days In Each Calendar Month
To answer the question you first need to recall how many days each month contains.
There are several common methods people use to remember how many days are in a month: by rhyme or by knuckles.
The rhyme goes something like this:
30 days has September, April, June and November; All the rest have 31, except February 28 days clear, or 29 in a leap year.
Days in month rhyme
The knuckle method involves putting both hands together as fists so that it exposes your knuckles.
With both fists together in front of you starting at your smallest knuckle on the right hand this is labelled January, then by moving left you hit the furrow between your knuckles, this is February.
As you continue to trace your eyes across your right hand you will come to another knuckle, this is March. Next is a furrow, this is April.
Continuing across your hand left you will then hit another knuckle, this is May, next across is a furrow, this is June, which then leads to your index finger’s knuckle which is July.
This is where your eyes now need to jump across to your left hand and the index finger’s knuckle on this hand. Being a knuckle this represents August.
As you travel further left you then hit a furrow, this is September, travelling up to the next knuckle, this is October, furrow November, before finally finishing on a knuckle this is December.
So what does mapping each of the months on your knuckles have to do with remembering how many days in a month?
Each knuckle represents 31 days!
Recall that all the months that landed on a knuckle were: January, March, May, July, August, October and December.
Every other month that landed in a furrow will be 30 days, or in the case of February 28 days (with leap year 29 days).
Therefore the knuckle method provides a visual representation of the days of each month.
Getting back to the question then if we know that each month of the year has either 31, 30 or 28 days (29 in the case of a leap year for February) all months have at least 28 days .
Therefore the answer to this question is 12 months have 28 days. Every month in the calendar has a 28th day!
Summary
The months of the year that have 28 days is 12, as all months have a 28th day of the month.
To help remember the number of days in a month you could use the calendar rhyme or the knuckle method.