I agree with this convention and I’ve played with it when my dad was describing his house that was created in the late 1990s and I said “yeah, it definitely has that fin de siecle ennui about it”.
No. I was already middle-aged when I entered the 21st century, and the “last century” to me is the 20th century and has been ever since January 1, 2001. But then, I’m a stickler for detail.
Like Hari Seldon, it took me a bit of time to get used to it, but I now thing of the 20th century as the last century. Turn of the century is not an expression I associate with passing from the 20th to the 21st century though. I was born in 1946.
It depends entirely upon context. If my son or one of his contemporaries says last century, I know they mean the 20th. If I’m playing bridge with the 80 year old ladies, and they say it, they generally mean the 19th century. If I say it, I mean the 20th.
No.
Okay, folks–it’s very simple…so just listen up. (And then get off my lawn 
)
- Anything that belongs to previous centuries is OLD.
- I dont wanna be old.
- Therefore, stuff between the 1950’s and 1999 is not “previous century”…it’s part of my life, my personal experiences— and therefore I define it as modern.
The dividing line is basically World War II–when I was a child, (pre-Vietnam) all the hero movies were about WWII; so even though it was before my time, it’s part of my experience and part of the “modern” era for me
The phrase “last century” implies old stuff. So it’s a term I use for things that were never part of my life: radio shows intead of TV, soup kitchens during the Depression, WW I soldiers, Model T cars, outhouses, horse drawn carriages, women wearing corsets and bustles, and of course anythng from 1800 till 1900, too.
It took me a while to realize the century recently turned, but I don’t do it anymore.
Born 1961.
No, but I keep correcting my family on it. Born 1968; the people I correct range from born in the 1970s to born in the 1940s (Grandma doesn’t make that mistake).
That’s because the 1900s WERE the last century. The OP said “19th century”, which is the 1800s. I’ll await your retraction of snark. Wait, no I won’t.
Well-spotted, you big not-idiot, you.
1945 and no.
But I’m still getting used to the fact that my parents, who were born in 1913, would be 100 years old if they were still alive.