#1162 ‘Versary

So the other day I was thinking about something. It was the anniversary of an occasion that had happened exactly 4 months previous. And I was going to commemorate it with someone who was involved in the event. But as I started to write “Happy Four-month Anniversary” I suddenly froze up.
Can an anniversary happen in any other time increment than a year? Isn’t the “ann” in anniversary from the same “ann” that appears in annual?
You can have the first anniversary of someone’s birth. Or the third anniversary of someone’s marriage. But can you have any anniversary after only four mouths?
And if not, what word would you use?
The thesaurus in my Word program only has longer periods to suggest—centenary and bicentenary. I’m look for a month-sary or quatro-month-sary.
I looked up “monthly” in my big thesaurus and it gave me the word menstrual. Sorry, not appropriate for the occasion I had in mind. Happy quarto-menstrual. Just not very festive sounding.
But they also gave the word catamenial. It means “by the month” or monthly. Cata is Greek for by. Mēn, with a long E sound as in mean, means month in Greek. The mēn comes from moon. The Latins took the mēn and changed it to “mensis” from which we get menses, menstrual and presumably Mensa, don’t ask me why. Monthly cycles having to do with the moon make perfect sense. An organization of smart people having to do with the moon? What kind of lunatics are they?
In any event, I’m satisfied. I can now wish my loved one a happy quatrocatamenial or, since it’s taken me so long to get around to researching this, a quintocatamenial. Better yet, since catamenial is derived from Greek and not Latin I should call it a pentecatamenial.
Pentecatamenial sounds cool. Almost like the menial labor of petting a cat. But also like some upper position in the Masonic order. He’s a Pentecatamenial of the first degree.
But here’s another possibility If the ann in anniversary means year, and mēn means month. How about a menaversary? Perfect. Happy fifth menaversary!
Then again maybe not. Fifth Menaversary also sounds like your fifth month in the anger management group...
America, ya gotta love it.