This is the inverse need of my question "Mapping integers to strings" in
<http://groups.google.com/g/7097feea/...7e69c03bea746b
4b
I want to map English language month names to month numbers in 1..12.

So far, I have
=VLOOKUP($AL9,{"April",4;"August",8;"December",12; "February",2;"January"
,1;"July",7;"June",6;"March",3;"May",5;"November", 11;"October",10;"Septe
mber",9},2,FALSE)

=HLOOKUP($AL9,{"April","August","December","Februa ry","January","July","
June","March","May","November","October","Septembe r";4,8,12,2,1,7,6,3,5,
11,10,9},2,FALSE)
and

=MATCH($AL9,{"January","February","March","April", "May","June","July","A
ugust","September","October","November","December" },0)

AL9 contains a month name.

These formulas seem inappropriately complicated for mapping month names
to month numbers, but are general purpose for mapping arbitrary sets of
strings to numbers.

Is there a simpler MonthNumber formula, I have missed?

I now answer my own question: =MONTH("1-" & $AL9 & "-1900")
;)
--
Walter Briscoe