OT: Which Century Are We In?

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Fox News just reported that the East Coast storm is the storm of the new century. And then he added that there's still 99 years to go so there might be another one to beat it. Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't we just starting the last year of the 20th Century and doesn't the New Millineum and the 21st Century actually start on Jan. 1st 2001? There is 100 years in a Century and a 1000 years in a Millineum and these periods of time didn't start with a year 0. This has probably been discussed on this site months earlier but would somebody please enlighten me because it's driving me nuts!

-- John Thomas (cjseed@webtv.net), January 25, 2000

Answers

You sir, are absolutley right! We are to go all through this nonsense all over again in less than an year! The 21st century technically starts January 1, 2001. So does the new milleneum (or millennium).

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), January 25, 2000.

John:

In my opinion you are correct, but when it comes to technical questions I always defer to the Network News ;o).

Best wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), January 25, 2000.


Thanks for the spelling corriction because everytimu my wife is yeling at me to get off the internut like she is doin wright now, I have one hell of a time triing to get evreything rite before I post it. If it ever happans again let me no. I appreciate yore help Jose. Jon

-- John Thomas (cjseed@webtv.net), January 25, 2000.

Anyone surprised I'm weighing in on this?

When Dionysus was charged with determining the birth of Christ as the start for the Christian calendar, he calculated the year Christ was born (incorrectly, as it turns out) and called the following year the year One. At the time, zero was not used as an integer in the western world. (To my knowledge ((I could be wrong)) Dionysus did not give the years before Christ any sort of official designation.) As a consequence, pedants have argued ever after that, since there was no year "zero", and subsequent convention called the year before 1 A.D. "1 B.C.", each decade runs through the year ending in zero; each century through the year ending in 00 and each millennium through the year ending 000.

BUT (and to make my several-page tome compressed enough to fit here):

1.A century is ANY period of one hundred years, with any arbitrary beginning; a millennium is ANY period of one thousand years, with any arbitrary beginning. The millennium we just ended began 1/1/1000, and ended 12/31/2000; the fact that there were only 999 years from year one through 999 has no bearing on this.

2.There is no reason NOT to simply designate the year of Christ's birth the year "0"; in fact this avoids the ridiculous contradiction in the "official" calendar that has Christ being born in the year 1 B.C.--that is, one year Before Christ. (He was actually born closer to 4 B.C. or so, but that's another story). Where is the point in perpetrating a monk's ignorance of the integer zero? Some astronomers, according to a site I looked up while researching this, do use the year zero.

3.Common preference of the hoi polloi is overwhelmingly to designate decades according to the first digit, centuries according to the first two, and millennia according to the first three (the eighties, the 1900's, and the 2000's). "Official" usage always follows, and never precedes, use by the (educated) masses. Language and "standard" usage is determined by the cumulative agreement of enough educated polloi to define a standard, and the overwhelming vote is to talk about THE Millennium with the meaning of a start point that ends in three zeros. Thus, the best a pedant can say is that we are not starting the twenty first century since the erroneously-calculated year after Christ's birth.

4. Finally, the calendar has been changed through the years, so even those who celebrate next December will still not be celebrating 2000 revolutions around the sun, which is different in any case that 2000 astronomical solstices, and did I mention the amount of atomic time it takes to make a revolution around the sun is different from year to year? Even the definition of the first day of the year has changed through the history of this calendar. In short, you cannot pedant yourself out of just admitting that common convention here is the best, and that ultimately the calendar is ARBITRARY. The Pedants of The First Millennium have hooked their Cart of Knowledge to the Donkey of Ignorance and Self-Contradiction, and are drowning in the River of Linguistic Fluidity and Common Sense, if I may quote myself, which I often do .

HOPE YOU HAD A HAPPY MILLENNIUM START!!!

Don't let the pedants get you down.

-- I'mSo (lame@prepped.com), January 25, 2000.


OOPS.

I left out the at the end of the main paragraph where I talk about quoting myself. Meaning, I may quote myself, but I don't get over-impressed at the source.

-- I'mSo (lame@prepped.com), January 25, 2000.



maybe koskey,kliton and the knn(klinton news network) could issue a press release explaining when the melllineum begins, they did so well with explaining y2k.

-- pam&bob (P&B prepped@pikes peak.com), January 25, 2000.

Well DUH; I didn't leave out the grin sign; I neglected to realize it would be discarded as unnecessary html code.

Well; I'm still right about the millennium. Put the grins on your own faces if you bothered to read this.

-- ImSo (lame@prepped.com), January 25, 2000.


ImSo,
It's the < and > that "got" you. Try "(" and ")".

Thanks for the essay, are you a bit of a history buff? (grin)

-- Possible Impact (posim@hotmail.com), January 25, 2000.

I go into an argument with my sister, (She's waiting for next year) who is a lot smarter than I am, so had to come up with some cogent arguments.

She has HER degree in history, unfortunately.

-- I'mSo (lame@prepped.com), January 25, 2000.


Just as the year 1 began a new century so will the year 2001. No one seems to care (marketing crews in particular)!

-- 2 (millen@isnt.here), January 26, 2000.


May as well resign yourself to the fact that BY POPULAR DEMAND, the 1900's was a 99 year century. ...(That is until the end of this year when everybody decides to recover that millenium party they missed while staying home for Y2K!)

-- Charli (claypool@belatlantic.net), January 26, 2000.

I'm waiting for 20th Century-Fox to change their logo... *then* we'll know for sure ;)

-- Just (anotherbuckeye@columbus.oh.us), January 26, 2000.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

...the end of this year when everybody decides to recover that millenium party they missed while staying home for Y2K!

Wouldn't it be ironic if, after all this work, expense and worry, after lots of people will have given away some of their Y2K stash or used a lot of it up, everybody is so relieved they have the biggest blowout of a party ever, and manage to thereby bring everything down afterall?

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), January 26, 2000.


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