No. I like the current system and I will continue to use it even if OP somehow manages to make everyone switch over, which they won’t manage to
Let's stop counting centuries
191–200 of 449 posts
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#192Author 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 is no "0" year, 1 is the 1st year, so 100th year is still the 1st century, therefore 2nd century starts in 101 and 20th in 1901.
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#193> Did the American revolution happen before, during, or after the Enlightenment? I’ve no idea. When did the American revolution happen? Not everyone’s cultural frame of reference is the same as yours. I can tell you when the Synod of Whitby happened, though.
The American and French Revolutions are a pretty big deal on the road to modern democracy, as well as being tied to 1700s Enlightenment ideals. Everyone educated should know this.
No one that I know of in Europe gets taught this
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
For that matter, a lot of historical dates we consider important are only important to us because A) we're westerners and B) we got them drilled into us by textbooks and classes. The remaining majority of the world (the west is a minority) sincerely couldn't care less about the American or French or Industrial Revolutions or Columbus (re)discovering America or the Hundred Years War or the Black Death or the Fall of R…
Appeal to ignorance and anti-intellectualism, congrats.
Yes, those things cannot be blamed
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#195This was confusing to me as a kid, especially as we entered the 21st. I also still remember learning about the Dutch golden age in elementary school, but can't remember if it was the 1600s or 16th century.
I'm running into a similar issue recently. Turns out that many people saying they are '7 months pregnant' actually mean they are in the 7th month, which starts after 26 weeks (6 months!)
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#196Author 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 is no "0" year, 1 is the 1st year, so 100th year is still the 1st century, therefore 2nd century starts in 101 and 20th in 1901.
I find this decree frustrating. Someone could have just as easily said "the 'first' century starts at 1 BC" to account for this.
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#197Immigrating from a country that uses "1700s", it probably took a decade before I had internalized to subtract 1 to get the real number. I will resent it till I die.
Here we say something like the "ninteen-hundred-era" for the 1900s, "ninteen-hundred-ten-era", for 1910s, "ninteen-hundred-twenty-era", etc. In writing 1900-era, 1910-era, 1920-era. The most recent decades are referred to with only the "70-era" for the 70s. The word for age/epoch/era in our language is a lot more casual in this setting.
The 20xx vs 200x does indeed leave some room for ambiguity in writing, verbally most people say 20-hundred-era vs 20-null-null-era.
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Half one” is archaic English, and common German, for 12:30. Similarly “my 27th year” just sounds archaic to me: I wonder if you went through a bunch of 19th century writing if you’d see ages more often be “Xth year” vs “X-1 years old”. There may be something cultural that caused such a shift, like a change in how math or reading is taught (or even that it’s nearly universally taught, which changes how we think and s…
Isn’t “half one” used as a short form of “half past one” these days, I.e. 01:30? That has been a source of confusion for someone used to the Germanic way.
I had this exact topic with an Irish coworker who lives in Germany and has issues to convey the right time. For me as a German „half one“ is half of one so 12:30. Same for „Dreiviertel eins“ -> „threequarter one“ being 12:45 and „Viertel eins“ -> „quarter one“ being 12:15.
To be fair the logic behind this is also under constant confusion as some parts of Germany rather use „viertel vor“ or „viertel nach“ -> „quarter to“ „quarter after“ and have no understanding of the three quarter business.
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first day of the 1st Century is Jan 1, 1 AD. The point is that some days got skipped over the centuries, but there's no need to make the Centuries have weird boundaries.
> The first day of the 1st Century is Jan 1, 1 AD. That's not what the poster I originally responded to is saying. He's saying the 1st Century should start on a nonexistent day.
No, I'm saying we ignore when it actually started and instead use the normal rules of counting to decide what to call the respective centuries.
Re: Let's stop counting centuries
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no "0" year, 1 is the 1st year, so 100th year is still the 1st century, therefore 2nd century starts in 101 and 20th in 1901.
I find this decree frustrating. Someone could have just as easily said "the 'first' century starts at 1 BC" to account for this.
Or better yet just year 0, why not? Do we say the 80s start in 1981?