Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 2000-2009’s are the aughts!
The noughties!
You ought naught to propose such noughts!
Let's stop counting centuries
21–30 of 449 posts
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#22It's easy, we should have simply started counting centuries from zero. Centuries should be zero-indexed, then everything works. We do the same with people's ages. For the entire initial year of your life you were zero years old. Likewise, from years 0-99, zero centuries had passed so we should call it the zeroth century! At least this is how I justify to my students that zero-indexing makes sense. Everyone's fought t…
> We do the same with people's ages.
No, we don't.
When we refer to 'the first year of life', we mean the time from birth until you turn 1.
Similarly, you'd say something like 'you're a child in the first decade of your life and slowly start to mature into a young adult by the end of the second decade', referring to 0-9 and 10-19, respectively.
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#23It's easy, we should have simply started counting centuries from zero. Centuries should be zero-indexed, then everything works. We do the same with people's ages. For the entire initial year of your life you were zero years old. Likewise, from years 0-99, zero centuries had passed so we should call it the zeroth century! At least this is how I justify to my students that zero-indexing makes sense. Everyone's fought t…
We don't 0-index people's ages. There are a million books about "baby's first year", while they're still 0 years old.
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#24Author makes a good point. "1700s" is both more intuitive and more concise than "18th century". The very first episode of Alex Trebeck's Jeopardy in 1984 illustrates how confusing this can be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDTxS9_CwZA The "Final Jeopardy" question simply asked on what date did the 20th century begin, and all three contestants got it wrong, leading to a 3-way tie.
> very first
It’s actually the second.
> Trebeck's
Trebek's*
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#25Well yeah, most of the time if I want to be understood I will say “the 1700s” because it is straightforward to connect with familiar dates. We still say “20th century” though because that’s idiomatic.
The author's point is that idioms change, and this one should.
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#26It's easy, we should have simply started counting centuries from zero. Centuries should be zero-indexed, then everything works. We do the same with people's ages. For the entire initial year of your life you were zero years old. Likewise, from years 0-99, zero centuries had passed so we should call it the zeroth century! At least this is how I justify to my students that zero-indexing makes sense. Everyone's fought t…
We don't 0-index people's ages. There are a million books about "baby's first year", while they're still 0 years old.
We also talk about someone’s first day at work during that day.
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#27It's easy, we should have simply started counting centuries from zero. Centuries should be zero-indexed, then everything works. We do the same with people's ages. For the entire initial year of your life you were zero years old. Likewise, from years 0-99, zero centuries had passed so we should call it the zeroth century! At least this is how I justify to my students that zero-indexing makes sense. Everyone's fought t…
We don't 0-index people's ages. There are a million books about "baby's first year", while they're still 0 years old.
If you point at year long intervals, then those will be year long intervals indeed.
Nevertheless the traditional "how old are you" system uses a number 1 less.
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#28One point, the singular they has been in use for centuries, where this essay suggests it's a recent invention.
The essay doesn't really say anything about when the singular "they" was invented . What it says is that it used to be low-status and unsophisticated language. > In the 1970s, fancy people would have sniffed at using “they” rather than “he” for a single person of unknown sex like this. But today, fancy people would sniff at not doing that. How did that happen? > I think “they” climbed the prestige ladder—people slowl…
The essay’s narrative is overly simplified and misleading about details. Singular they has been common for centuries. The idea that it was lower status is a more recent invention. The author might be referring more to use of they as a personal pronoun. Anyway, whatevs, language changes, that part of author’s message is good.
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#29Author makes a good point. "1700s" is both more intuitive and more concise than "18th century". The very first episode of Alex Trebeck's Jeopardy in 1984 illustrates how confusing this can be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDTxS9_CwZA The "Final Jeopardy" question simply asked on what date did the 20th century begin, and all three contestants got it wrong, leading to a 3-way tie.
There are numerous common concise ways to write the 18th century, at the risk of needing the right context to be understood, including “C18th”, “18c.”, or even “XVIII” by itself.
These are even more impractical, so I wonder what your point is? I can come up with an even shorter way to say 18th century, by using base26 for example, so let's denote it as "cR". What has been gained?
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#30A lot of this runaround is happening because people get hung up on the fact that the "AD" era began as AD 1. But that year is not magic--it didn't even correlate with the year of Jesus's birth or death. So let's just start the AD era a year before, and call that year "AD 0". It can even overlap with BC 1. BC 1 is the same as AD 0. Fine, we can handle that, right? Then the 00s are [0, 100), 100s are [100, 200), etc. Zero problem, and we can start calling them the 1700s etc., guilt free.