# The New Millenium **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 19, 1999, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809 "1999-08-19T10:02:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eddie\_Gosik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Eddie\_Gosik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eddie_Gosik)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/1 "1999-08-19T10:02:00Z")
After reading tons of crap about the New Millenium (i.e. When does it actually start, etc.,etc.,etc.),my general thoughts are…you people need to GET A LIFE! You can get as “technical” as you like…but for most of us, the New Millenium starts after the clock strikes 12 on Dec.31, 1999! But what MY question is…is how exactly will we verbally refer to the year 2000, in 2001 and so on? And for that matter, the whole millenium after the clock strikes 12 on Dec.31,2999? Will we say,“yeah…I bought that car back in zero-zero.”? And will we say…“Things got really nutz back in the Two-Thousands”? Or will we just refer to it as “Back in the 1st Millenium”? How did they refer to the year 00 back in 1902? ---
**Author:** ![Doobieous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Doobieous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doobieous)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/2 "1999-08-19T10:13:00Z")
i cant wait to see the other replys to this post LOL. ---
**Author:** ![ChiefScott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58f4c7/32.png) [@ChiefScott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChiefScott)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/3 "1999-08-19T12:09:00Z")
It’s deja vu all over again! Double aught. “I graduated way back in double aught.” My $.02 ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/4 "1999-08-19T13:15:00Z")
\*Eddie Gosik: But what MY question is…is how exactly will we verbally refer to the year 2000, in 2001 and so on? \* “Turn of the Century” was a popular phrase. (“Turn of the Millenium”?) What I want to know is when we’ll refer to the upcoming years without prefixing “the year-” in front of it. _You can get as “technical” as you like…but for most of us, the New Millenium starts after the clock strikes 12 on Dec.31, 1999!_ It’s not quote-technical-unquote; it’s the mathematical truth! You’re confusing the “odometer” rolling over to 2000 as the end of 2000 years. It’s actually marking the beginning of the 2000th year that won’t be finished until 12/31/2000 23:59:59.999… Now if we’d started with a year 0, you’d be right. But nope. 1 BC ended and 1 AD began. There is _a_ millenium that ends at 12/31/1999, which is the 1000’s AD. But that is _not_ the same as the 2nd Millenium AD. Similarly, the 1990’s will end, but the 200th Decade AD will continue to 12/31/2000. _GET A LIFE!_ Get a math degree. ---
**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:** [August 19, 1999, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/5 "1999-08-19T13:33:00Z")
I contend it’s the odometer effect. Yes, mathematically the millenium don’t begin until 1/1/2001, but the FUN is watching the odometer turn over and all the little 9’s turn into 0’s. (If you have a computer-generated odomoter, you don’t get this thrill.) It’s the fun of tossing out all the checks or admin forms that say “19\_\_” for the year. It’s the fun of not getting the date right on the checks you write for the first few month – not just getting the last digit wrong (as usual in January) but getting the first friggin’ digit wrong! It’s the fun of a year that ends in 000, which hasn’t happened for a thousand years (regardless of when we started counting, it is certainly 1000 years since the year 1000, and 100 years since the year 1900.) So, the celebrations are not about the mathematics, IMHO, but about the odometer. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/6 "1999-08-19T13:51:00Z")
\*CKDextHavn: I contend it’s the odometer effect. Yes, mathematically the millenium don’t begin until 1/1/2001, but the FUN is watching the odometer turn over and all the little 9’s turn into 0’s. (If you have a computer-generated odomoter, you don’t get this thrill.) \* Thank you. Yes, it’s fun to watch the odometer roll over. When I was on a family vacation when I was 7 was when I noticed the little numbers changing under the speedometer. I got so involved that I didn’t watch the scenery that my parent took us hundreds of miles to see. (So, what’s so special about Yellowstone again?) I especially liked how the numbers kind of “edge off” of a straight line as all the 9’s appear. My car has a @!#?@! LCD odometer. Just out of the blue, it clicks to the new miles. No fun at all. ---
**Author:** ![Eddie\_Gosik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Eddie\_Gosik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eddie_Gosik)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/7 "1999-08-19T14:01:00Z")
Yada-yada-yada! Yeah…read all the stuff. Understand it FULLY… I agree…Your right. But my question STILL ain’t been answered here YET! It was just simple “Average Joe” kinda inquiry. Not an invitation for every " Smug, Know-it-all" to excerise his “Vast knowlege of the Inner Workings of EVERYTHING”… Just a simple “Wadda we gonna CALL it?!!!” ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Thin\_Skin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@Mr\_Thin\_Skin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Thin_Skin)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/8 "1999-08-19T14:19:00Z")
It’s not like there’s a committee to decide this. Everything I’ve read has said that some popular usage would be used, but you’ll just have to wait and see. I fear it will involve the use of the letter O, as in “oh one” for '01 instead of “zero one.” ---
**Author:** ![Eddie\_Gosik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Eddie\_Gosik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eddie_Gosik)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/9 "1999-08-19T14:29:00Z")
Finally…someone on the same wavelength! Yeah…I figured the same for those years(01,02,03…), but what about da year after the clock turns? We gonna refer to it as “back in Oh-Oh’s”? Or “The Turn” or something? Same for the 2000’s in the year 3000. “Back in the early Two-thousands”? Kinda sounds weird, no? Just pondering here. ---
**Author:** ![Carl\_Berry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@Carl\_Berry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carl_Berry)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/10 "1999-08-19T14:34:00Z")
i think we will call a date like 4/19/00, “April 19th, two-thousand” & 5/9/01, “May 9th, Twenty -o- one” Most will say "20-“OH” one, but a few will insist upon “20-ZERO-1” the latter will bug me I’m sure! Most people at the time called 1900 “nineteen hundred” & 1901 “nineteen OUGHT one”, But I don’t look for “ought” to return. * * * Zymurgist ---
**Author:** ![kellibelli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e480ec/32.png) [@kellibelli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellibelli)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/11 "1999-08-19T14:35:00Z")
for christs sake, do NOT leave it up to the Canadians, or it will be the eighties, the nineties, and then the loonies or toonies or something! Kelli, from Canada ---
**Author:** ![TheNerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@TheNerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheNerd)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/12 "1999-08-19T14:49:00Z")
I hereby decree that the coming decade will be known as “the Naughties”. As in, naught-one, naught-two… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/13 "1999-08-19T15:39:00Z")
“Zero-zero” as an abbrieviation, “two-thousand” as the year. At least that’s what I’m hearing around here. I have also seen a few forms that insist on mo/da/year vice mo/da/yr (10/30/2000 vice 10/30/00), BTW. I’m of the opinion that we’ll have to wait and see what drifts o the top of the usage pile after a few years. It’s gonna sound odd for a while but, unless the world ends, I guess we’ll get used to it. * * * ``` Jess ``` Full of 'satiable curtiosity ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/14 "1999-08-19T15:51:00Z")
I notice that ‘millenium’ is metric, right? Equivalent to a ‘thousand.’ It’s Interesting for me to think of time in metric terms. Because of, for example, 60 minute hours, not 100 minute hours. Roman numerals would be: MM ? Could someone check that for me? ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/15 "1999-08-19T16:58:00Z")
I have heard: The aughts the Oh-Oh’s The Zips and my own personal fave: the “oo’s” (pronounced as in “ooooh, ahhhh”) (oo-1, oo-2, etc) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 1999, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/16 "1999-08-20T05:40:00Z")
Well, I fondly remember my first grade teacher saying, "When I was your age, back in aught-seven . . " So I intend to use that. I’ll call 2000 “two thousand,” then go into “aught-one,” etc. Think how impressive it will be in a few years that most of us knew people born in the late 1800s! Not that those young whippersnappers will listen . . . ---
**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:** [August 19, 1999, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/17 "1999-08-19T19:48:00Z")
\<\< Roman numerals would be: MM ? Could someone check that for me? \>\> Yes, handy. Where have you been? Haven’t you seen M&Ms advertise themselves as the Candy of the Millenium? ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/18 "1999-08-19T22:07:00Z")
The millenium no more starts on Jan 1, 2001 than it starts on Jan 1, 2000. Are you forgetting that we switched from the Julian to Gregorian calander? Did you take an adjustment to that effect? Did you also take in account that the new year one time started in March? I’m much to lazy to do the math, but if someone wants to calculate these changes, (and if you look I’m sure you would find other changes in the calender we don’t account for), it would be interesting to see the result. ---
**Author:** ![pluto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f08c70/32.png) [@pluto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pluto)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/19 "1999-08-19T22:46:00Z")
Changing to the Gregorian calendar does not affect the date of the millenium, in fact the reason the new calendar was adopted was so that we would use the correct date for holidays, especially Easter (why would the Pope care, otherwise?). A millenium is a thousand years, that is one thousand orbits of the earth around the sun. We have adjusted the calendar a number of times. That has changed our bookkeeping but not, I repeat, not the number of years that have gone by. If you want to calculate the number of days in a thousand years (365,244+) and count forward from your starting date you can find the start date for the next millenium. Jan 1, 2000 will be the 730,123rd day since Jan 1, 0001 (the first day of the first millenium), still 365 days short of the first day of the third millenium. Of course you’ve got to find your starting date … There is no question that the twenty-first century and the third millenium start in 2001. It’s just that we like whole numbers so much we want to celebrate them. * * * “non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem” ---
**Author:** ![Sassy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@Sassy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sassy)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 1999, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809/20 "1999-08-19T22:53:00Z")
My vote for the naughties… * * * The reason gentlemen prefer blondes is that there are not enough redheads to go around. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-millenium/2809.md?page=2)