91–100 of 449 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The right answer was, and still is: Jan 1, 1901
No, the first century began Jan 1, 0000. Whether that year actually existed or not is irrelevant - we shouldn't change our counting system in the years 100, 200 etc.
I do tend to say "the XX00s", since it's almost always significantly clearer than "the (XX+1)th century". > There’s no good way to refer to 2000-2009, sorry. This isn't really an argument against the new convention, since even in the old convention there was no convenient way of doing so. People mostly just say "the early 2000s" or explicitly reference a range of years. Very occasionally you'll hear "the aughts".
> 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.
A 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. Z…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The calendar goes from 1 BC to 1 AD, there is no year 0.
There is no year zero according to first-order pedants. Second-order pedants know that there is a year zero in both the astronomical year numbering system and in ISO 8601, so whether or not there is a year zero depends on context. It's ultimately up to us to decide how to project our relatively young calendar system way back into the past before it was invented. Year zero makes everything nice. Be like astronomers an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On your sixth birthday we put a big 5 on your cake and call you a 5 year old all year. Can't say I've ever had to refer to someone's first year or first decade of their life, but sure I'd do that if it came up. Meanwhile, 0-indexed age comes up all the time.
> On your sixth birthday we put a big 5 on your cake and call you a 5 year old all year. If you are going to be that pedantic, I would point out that one only has one birthday. (Well, unless one's mother is extremely unlucky.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The calendar goes from 1 BC to 1 AD, there is no year 0.
There is no year zero according to first-order pedants. Second-order pedants know that there is a year zero in both the astronomical year numbering system and in ISO 8601, so whether or not there is a year zero depends on context. It's ultimately up to us to decide how to project our relatively young calendar system way back into the past before it was invented. Year zero makes everything nice. Be like astronomers an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Of course, they are important, but so are many other things - and speaking e.g. from a European POV, a lot of other events are simply much more salient and commonplace - and the same is probably even more true for other continents (would a random reasonably educated American or European person know when the Meiji restauration happened or when Latin America became independent?). You can't expect everyone to have memor…
The events that directly affect the modern world should be covered in school. I’d say revolutions that created large modern states would be among them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Except we do, as soon as we need the next digit. In "figure of speech", or conventual use, people start drinking in their 21st year, not their 22nd. In common parlance, they can vote in their 18th year, not their 19th. We talk of a child in their 10th year as being age 10. Might even be younger. Try asking a people if advice about a child in their "5th year of development" means you're dealing with a 5 year old. Most…
You are correct that nobody says "22nd year" in this context, but nobody says "21st year" either. The former is awkward but the latter is just incorrect.