Old Style and New Style dates
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) are used in English language historical studies either to indicate that the start of the Julian year has been adjusted to start on 1 January (N.S.) even though documents written at the time use a different start of year (O.S.); or to indicate that a date conforms to the Julian calendar (O.S.), formerly in use in many countries, rather than the Gregorian calendar (N.S.).
Cultural references
In the book Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous by George Augustus Henry Sala, the narrator says "The year of our Lord is seventeen hundred and eighty. His Majesty's subjects have lost eleven days—through some Roguery in high places, you may be sure—since I was a young man; and were I a cocksloch, I might grudge that snipping off of the best part of a fortnight from an Old Man's life."
In one of the many peculiar digressions in Thomas Pynchon's novel Mason & Dixon, the same missing eleven days are said to be inhabited by a race of phantom pygmies.
