I’m a little tired of people saying, or implying, that it was somehow wrong to celebrate “the turn of the millennium” on 12-31-99. It’s my view that there was something to celebrate, and that it can even be called “the turn of the millennium.”
It just can’t be called “the end of second millennium” or “the beginning of the third millennium.” If you had to give it a name, you could call it “the end of the millennium consisting of years that all started with the digit 1” and “the beginning of the millennium consisting of years that will all start with the digit 2.”
A millennium is ANY period of a 1000 years, and let’s face it, what folks were really celebrating was the big rollover of digits.
Sure, they were wrong when they called it the beginning of the 3rd millennium or the end of the 2nd, but they weren’t wrong to be celebrating, and they weren’t wrong to call it “the turn of the millennium.” They just didn’t know what millennium was turning.
Abusus non tollit usum. (L. Misuse does not nullify proper use. This is a legal maxim as well as an argument. How I’m using it is to say that if everyone believes something that’s wrong, popular belief does not make it right.) If most people think that the third millenium begins 1/1/00, they’re wrong, no matter how loudly they shout. Math isn’t a shouting match. Math is logic and reason. Don’t call me chauvinist or too intellectual. Don’t call me a killjoy. You can get drunk and scream whatever you want whenever you want. But don’t try to prove yourself correct by trying to nullify the very thing you want to justify. (If it makes no difference when the third millenium begins anyway, why are you still arguing that it must begin on 1/1/00 because we don’t know when Jesus was born anyway? That isn’t good logic, and it isn’t good debating tools.) It’s been proven that 1/1/01 is the real date. You can celebrate the birth of the golden calf tonight if you want to, or get drunk and shout that the third millenium begins next wednesday. I really don’t care. But don’t try to argue against math with ‘what the masses think’.
The 20th Century ends the minute you are issued your rocket belt, ray gun, & robot servant; not one instant before.
Wait by the videophone, & call us when you get yours.
