# A rare slip - Cecil misses the point on "decades" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [May 28, 2007, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749 "2007-05-28T02:56:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![GeorgeBrooks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5ac83/32.png) [@GeorgeBrooks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GeorgeBrooks)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/1 "2007-05-28T02:56:22Z")
I have been a devotee of Cecil for years. But I have recently bumped into his discussions regarding the issue of when the new millenium started, and when the the new century and new decade starts. We read some of these discussions here: [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3\_376.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_376.html) Cecil actually stoops to saying: “There’s no point being a columnist if you can’t be obstinate in the face of all logic.” He objects to the use of the term “eighties” being applied only to the years with eighty in them. No, he asks us to agree. He insists that the Eighties should rightly include 1979 and exlude 1989. What?! When my son became a TEEN-ager, it was not when he became 14. It was when he became thir-TEEN… hence the term TEEN-ager. All this tom-foolery started when someone counted back using the Arabic calendar and noticed that there was a “1” BCE instead of a “0” AD. And things have gone to hell ever since. In Wikipedia - - > **[Anno Domini](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_year_of_our_Lord)** > > The terms anno Domini (AD) and before Christ (BC)\[note 1\] are used to label or number years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The term anno Domini is Medieval Latin and means "in the year of the Lord" but is often presented using "our Lord" instead of "the Lord", taken from the full original phrase "anno Domini nostri Jesu Christi", which translates to "in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ". The form "BC" is specific to English, and equivalent abbreviations are used in other languag This c... - - we learn that the AD and BC system was established in the 500’s AD. In other words, someone monk started counting back from his own year to define year “0”. But there was no zero at the time. At this Wikipedia article - - > **[0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_0)** > > 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. As a number, 0 fulfills a central role in mathematics as the additive identity of the integers, real numbers, and other algebraic structures. > In place-value notation such as decimal, 0 also serves as a numerical digit to indicate that that position's power of 10 is not multiplied by anything or added to the resulting number. This concept appears to have been difficult to discover. > Common names for the number 0 in English are zero, nought, ... - - we learn that the Indian/Arabic concept of “0” didn’t arrive in Europe until the 11th century. So what’s a monk to do? Without a zero he makes the number just before 1 AD into 1 BC. We don’t have to fuss about whether the parents of Jesus could have ever used a calendar that referred to the “Ides of March, 0 AD”. We don’t have to fuss about it because there was no AD or BC at the time! It’s a stupid debate, designed for quibblers and hair splitters. It has nothing to do with how humans (rather than computers) categorize the years of their lives. The Eighties are named after the prefix “eight”, and the nineties the same way. Centuries start and end the same way. The 1800’s and the 1900’s end and begin when the prefix (18… or 19…) changes, not a whole year AFTER the change in the words. This is how people use these terms; they do not look back to some Middle Eastern stop watch which never existed to begin with. This is all about semantics not “logics”. I celebrated the new millenium on January 1, 2000 because the human language ran out of words for the 1900’s, and ran out of days for the “nineteen nineties”, no more and no less. I did not delay my celebration in order to comply with a calendar clock that didn’t even exist at the time of the “BC vs. AD” year in question. This may, in fact, be why no one gives a hoot about changing their celebrations or their terminology. It’s like asking English speakers to reject the use of “gender”, in favor of “sex”, simply because gender USED to be reserved to linguistics and dividing words into masculine, feminine and neuter. Sorry… words evolve. Now gender refers to humans too. Whatever seemed right centuries ago, decades are now defined from “0” to “9”, and centuries from “00” to “99”. For Cecil to endulge the petulant inclinations of curmudgeons, naysayers and contrarians is very surprising to me. I hope this is one of those rare lapses in Cecil’s judgment. A surprised admirer, George ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/2 "2007-05-28T03:12:55Z")
I agree. The convention of calling decades as we do is because they refer to nominal numbers, not ordinal (like the centuries). 1980 was the last year of the 9th decade (ordinal number) of the 20th century but it was still part of the “80’s” very simply and correctly because it has the nominal number 80 in it. I think you’re right that Cecil missed the boat on this one. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/3 "2007-05-28T05:32:00Z")
I agree with the above. All collections of years are arbitrary. It’s not like there’s no such thing as a group of ten years ordered anyway other than some bizarre and at odds with history system in which they are always counting ten years from some named date that didn’t even exist at the time. When coming up with names for decades based upon the numerals, we take the ones based upon those numerals. The Eighties isn’t the Eighties without 1980. It’s an example of focusing on the “pants” part of smarty pants instead of the “smart.” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/4 "2007-05-28T05:34:06Z")
I think there’s a bigger point being missed as well. There’s only three objective time periods: a year, the lunar month, and the day. These are based on observable astronomic events. Everything else is just a human convention. Arguing that the eighties should have begun in 1981 or that the 21st century should have begun in 2001 is like arguing that a week should be eight days long - you may have some logical arguments to support your position but the decision is made by consensus not logic. If the majority of people decide that the eighties began on January 1, 1980 and the 21st century began on January 1, 2000 and that seven days makes a week, then that’s the way it is - even if it means we had a nine year decade or a 99 year century back at some point. A lot of people had years that only lasted 355 days in 1582 and 1752 and they got past it. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/5 "2007-05-28T06:00:11Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] and the 21st century began on January 1, 2000 [/QUOTE] I agree with that one wholeheartedly also. The people who refused to accept 2000 as the new century and millennium were long on outrage and short on common sense. It’s the most logical grouping. So what if the first millennium is missing a day? It’s not like anyone set up an official millennium at that time. It was just some bad tossing together of a system after the fact for biased theocratic purposes and not some logical system (which would have had a year zero and would have avoided basing it off some arbitrary date of birth to some legendary figure tied to religious dogma). ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/6 "2007-05-28T12:46:09Z")
[QUOTE=Dan Norder] I agree with that one wholeheartedly also. The people who refused to accept 2000 as the new century and millennium were long on outrage and short on common sense. It’s the most logical grouping. So what if the first millennium is missing a day? It’s not like anyone set up an official millennium at that time. It was just some bad tossing together of a system after the fact for biased theocratic purposes and not some logical system (which would have had a year zero and would have avoided basing it off some arbitrary date of birth to some legendary figure tied to religious dogma). [/QUOTE] Bloody nonsense. A “millennium” _means_ a thousand of something. You literally are arguing that there are only 23 eggs in two dozen. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/7 "2007-05-28T12:57:52Z")
[QUOTE=Dan Norder] I agree with that one wholeheartedly also. The people who refused to accept 2000 as the new century and millennium were long on outrage and short on common sense. It’s the most logical grouping. So what if the first millennium is missing a day? It’s not like anyone set up an official millennium at that time. It was just some bad tossing together of a system after the fact for biased theocratic purposes and not some logical system (which would have had a year zero and would have avoided basing it off some arbitrary date of birth to some legendary figure tied to religious dogma). [/QUOTE] Absolute nonsense. Since when do you count starting with zero? :smack: I can see it now. A baseball team has eight players on the field; the pitcher is position 0. January becomes the 0th month of the year. December becomes the 11th. Do you see how absurd this is? :rolleyes: The only reason people thought that 1/1/2000 was the beginning of the third millenium is that people, in general, are damn dumb. Jumping on the dumb bandwagon isn’t particularly smart, in my book. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/8 "2007-05-28T13:03:44Z")
[QUOTE=GeorgeBrooks] IHe insists that the Eighties should rightly include 1979 and exlude 1989. What?! [/QUOTE] Cecil makes no such claim. Cecil says that the Eighties should run from 1/1/81 to 12/31/90. Personally, on this one, I think Cecil is out to lunch. As one of the people who wrote back to him remarked, the 80s aren’t necessarily contiguous with the 199th decade since 1/1/0001. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/9 "2007-05-28T13:08:09Z")
[QUOTE=GeorgeBrooks] All this tom-foolery started when someone counted back using the Arabic calendar and noticed that there was a “1” BCE instead of a “0” AD. [/quote] What the bloody hell are you talking about? There is no “Arabic calendar”. There is an Islamic calendar, but it has nothing to do with BCE/CE, or with BC/AD, for that matter; in fact, it doesn’t even observe solar years. > [@](#): > > In Wikipedia - - > > [Anno Domini - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_year_of_our_Lord) > > - > - we learn that the AD and BC system was established in the 500’s AD. > In other words, someone monk started counting back from his own year > to define year “0”. But there was no zero at the time. Yes, it’s a well known fact that, back in the olden days, whenever a man had two apples, and gave them both away, he disappeared into a time/space paradox and was never heard of again. > [@](#): > > At this Wikipedia article - - > > [0 - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_0) > > - > - we learn that the Indian/Arabic concept of “0” didn’t arrive in Europe until the 11th century. The issue of place notation is spectacularly irrelevant to this subject. > [@](#): > > So what’s a monk to do? Without a zero he makes the number just before 1 AD into 1 BC. Hint: fill in the following sentences: “January 20[sup]th[/sup] is the ??? day of a president’s term.” “January 19[sup]th[/sup] is ??? day before that.” > [@](#): > > The Eighties are named after the prefix “eight”, and the nineties the > same way. Centuries start and end the same way. The 1800’s and > the 1900’s end and begin when the prefix (18.. or 19..) changes, not > a whole year AFTER the change in the words. The issue is not “the nineteen hundreds” but “the twentieth century”. > [@](#): > > This is all about semantics not “logics”. I take it that by this you are surrendering altogether. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/10 "2007-05-28T13:08:16Z")
And, predictably, the people who get all bent out of shape over such things decide to rant and rave all over again. Since when do you start counting years with zero? How about in any sane calendar (as opposed to the one that got cooked up later)? Babies don’t get born at age one. If you are counting time you don’t get year one until a year has already passed. The first year of anything starts out not being a full year and counting days. Then it gets to a year. This is such basic, common sense that it’s frankly bizarre that anyone could argue anything differently. So somebody decided to start with year one and ignore basic math. That makes them the dumb and ridiculous one, not the people who mark milleniums when they should be marked instead of off some ignorant person’s mistake from centuries ago. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/11 "2007-05-28T16:19:13Z")
[QUOTE=Dan Norder] And, predictably, the people who get all bent out of shape over such things decide to rant and rave all over again. Since when do you start counting years with zero? How about in any sane calendar (as opposed to the one that got cooked up later)? Babies don’t get born at age one. If you are counting time you don’t get year one until a year has already passed. The first year of anything starts out not being a full year and counting days. Then it gets to a year. This is such basic, common sense that it’s frankly bizarre that anyone could argue anything differently. So somebody decided to start with year one and ignore basic math. That makes them the dumb and ridiculous one, not the people who mark milleniums when they should be marked instead of off some ignorant person’s mistake from centuries ago. [/QUOTE] Several places and times in history age would have been given as what year you were _in_ rather than how many you had completed. So the newborn child would be _in_ its first year, then after the date where it turns one in the common system today, it’d be in its second. Its first decade would be completed at the end of its 10th year. That’s neither dumb, nor ignorant, nor ridiculous, and it’s the way the calendar is built up as well, making the year 2000, by definition the 2000th year of the common era, the last year of the second millennium, not the first year of the third. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/12 "2007-05-28T23:05:25Z")
Welcome to the SDMB, **GeorgeBrooks**! 🙂 Good first post. Hope you stay. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/13 "2007-05-28T23:55:06Z")
[QUOTE=naita] That’s neither dumb, nor ignorant, nor ridiculous, and it’s the way the calendar is built up as well, making the year 2000, by definition the 2000th year of the common era, the last year of the second millennium, not the first year of the third. [/QUOTE] It **is** dumb, and ignorant, and extremely ridiculous, especially when it comes to trying to enforce its ridiculousness on deciding when to celebrate the new millenium. This board is for fighting ignorance, but unfortunately most people who are ignorant are too busy trying to prove themselves correct than using any common sense or logic. ---
**Author:** ![Oneste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/46a35a/32.png) [@Oneste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oneste)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/14 "2007-05-29T00:06:50Z")
The concept of when to count the decade is similar to birthdates. A baby is age zero when born and is not counted as one-year until they have achieved one year. If we’re counting by years then the first [completed] year of the decade is counted when we reach 1991. If we’re counting by days…January 2, 1990 indicates one day in the decade has been achieved. I think I understand what the theory is, but I could be wrong, of course! ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/15 "2007-05-29T00:19:55Z")
[QUOTE=Oneste] The concept of when to count the decade is similar to birthdates. A baby is age zero when born and is not counted as one-year until they have achieved one year. If we’re counting by years then the first [completed] year of the decade is counted when we reach 1991. If we’re counting by days…January 2, 1990 indicates one day in the decade has been achieved. I think I understand what the theory is, but I could be wrong, of course! [/QUOTE] Is a person who is 30 years old in his 20’s or in his 30’s? ---
**Author:** ![snetplit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@snetplit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snetplit)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/16 "2007-05-29T00:23:01Z")
Question. Since 1 - -1 = 2 Wouldn’t 1 bc be two years before 1 ad? Shouldn’t there be a year 0 then? Oh but common usage defines 1 bc coming right before 1 ad? Then why shouldn’t common usage define the millennia? ---
**Author:** ![DiggitCamara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@DiggitCamara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiggitCamara)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/17 "2007-05-29T00:26:47Z")
[QUOTE=John W. Kennedy] What the bloody hell are you talking about? There is no “Arabic calendar”. There is an Islamic calendar, but it has nothing to do with BCE/CE, or with BC/AD, for that matter; in fact, it doesn’t even observe solar years. Yes, it’s a well known fact that, back in the olden days, whenever a man had two apples, and gave them both away, he disappeared into a time/space paradox and was never heard of again. (snip) [/QUOTE] We are, currently, in the 21st. century. Which was the zeroth century? Which was the first? (starting and ending years, please) We are, currently, in the 3rd. millenium. Which was the zeroth millenium? Which was the first? (starting and ending centuries, please) ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/18 "2007-05-29T01:16:33Z")
[QUOTE=DiggitCamara] We are, currently, in the 21st. century. Which was the zeroth century? Which was the first? (starting and ending years, please) We are, currently, in the 3rd. millenium. Which was the zeroth millenium? Which was the first? (starting and ending centuries, please) [/QUOTE] There WAS NO zeroeth century, decade, millenium, etc. The first year was the year 1 AD. The first decade contained the first through tenth years, that is, 1 AD to 10 AD. The first century contained the first through 100th years, that is, 1 AD to 100 AD. Etc. Failure to comprehend that the calendar numbers a year not by how many have been completed PRIOR to that year, but by what ordinal number it represents leads to the common misconception that the first year of any calendar system should have the number “0” attached to it. But, while it is true that you say you are “1 year old” during your second year of life, you would not say you are in your first year of life during your second year of life, and that’s what calendars are numbering. Which is the WHOLE POINT to my prior post, which seems to have been totally ignored by those who want to shout their position from the highest rooftop, but seem incapable of simple mathematic reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/19 "2007-05-29T02:22:52Z")
Well… arguably, the '60s started around 1963 (Kennedy’s assassination) and ran until 1974 (Nixon’s resignation)… Some date the 60s as starting with the Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show (1964). ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749/20 "2007-05-29T02:27:01Z")
[QUOTE=John W. Kennedy] Bloody nonsense. A “millennium” _means_ a thousand of something. You literally are arguing that there are only 23 eggs in two dozen. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=DSYoungEsq] Absolute nonsense. Since when do you count starting with zero? :smack: [/QUOTE] Just work backwards, with every century and millennium numbering as you wish. When you reach zero, what happens? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-slip-cecil-misses-the-point-on-decades/405749.md?page=2)