Yes, it is and it is Thursday, December 18, 2008 in the year of our Lord today.
It is just a way of thinking in that time by the religious people.
Sorry, I didn’t see the posts by Tom before I made this one. It is not that what I said that is wrong, anyone can tell you that, it was just who said it. I love you Tom.
Decades are periods of ten years. They start on Day One and end ten years later. So “the Sixties” starts Jan 1, 1960. A new decade can start right this moment if you want to, and end ten years from now.
Of course, colloquially “a decade” can mean “about ten years” instead of “exactly ten years.”
There have not been exactly 200 decades prior to Jan 1, 2000. That’s true, among other reasones, because there was no year zero. However it’s also true that there were not exactly 2000 years before Jan 1, 2001. There are assorted ways to define an earth “year” and none of them (except the arbitrary language definition) land on precisely that calendar moment either.
The pedants who complained that Jan 1 2000 was not the turn of the millenium hooked up their cart of knowledge to the donkey of ignorance. Ignorance about the concept of zero; ignorance about astronomical motion; ignorance about language. It was, in fact, the start of the “2000s millenium” and it was the end of the prior 1000 years.
For ordinary use, the “twenties” start with Jan 1, year xx20, and so on. For pedantic use by those who want to argue how many “years” it’s actually been since the CE began, it’s an astronomically tricky calculation indeed, only approximated by the calendar notation. So those pedants must also accept that the start of the decades is equally arbitrary. And once it’s arbitrary, there’s no basis for not letting the “Twenties” start on Jan 1, 2020, and the third millenium to start on Jan 1, 2000.
I settled all this back when some peanut brains were about to deprive themselves of the Great Millenium Parties under the idiotic assumption that the world was a year early. They didn’t listen and instead spent the evening at half-assed pseudo-nerd parties a year later, having missed the real action, apparently ignorant that they did not have the “correct” moment either.
The previous post did not have a good username/post combo. Just sayin’.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris