Happy New'ish Year LoT! Disneyland was AMAZING at midnight.

Yes, from a mathematical standpoint I do consider 1990 to have been the last year of the 9th decade of the 20th century. Just as I consider 2009 to be the 9th year of the 21st century, and thus the 9th year of the 1st decade of that century.

"The 80's" (like any such designation) is a cultural designation, not a calendar one.

If you give the calendar a theoretical year zero (and why not), then you can consider it mathematically a new decade. By way of analogy, we humans have a year zero, our first year of life, and on our tenth birthday, we have indeed entered our second decade. I see no reason not to extend this way of reckoning to the calendar, and thereby end years of tiresome debate about it.

That was my point. And celebrating the end of any particular 10 year period is also a cultural designation. We aren't commenting on the end of the first decade of the 21st century, we're commenting on the end of the 10-year period consisting of years that start with 200x. We're culturally excited by an extra number on the odometer changing, not by oddities introduced into the system by a monk a millennium ago.

Of course, the fact that there was no year zero is just a cultural designation and not an inherent calendrical one either. This whole thing could go away by designating 1BCE as Year 0 (it doesn't matter since they got the year of Jesus's birth wrong anyway) and if we had kept the Babylonian sexigesimal counting system we'd not care a damn about decades, we'd have to wait 60 years for an onslaught of "decadal" recaps and 3600 years for an end of the "century" party.

They did get the year of Jesus' putative birth laughably wrong, indeed. But let's pretend that the decision to remake the calendar in his honor happened while he was still alive. I would think they would want the year to match up with his age, and wouldn't want to pester him by having a year in his honor that is always irritatingly off by one. (I know you're thirty-three, but it's the year thirty-two, m'Lord.) In any case, I declared a year zero back at the 1999-2000 turnover and haven't looked back since.

That's always the difference between cardinal and ordinal counting of age.

Currently I'm 35, but I'm in my 36th year. The cultural decision to be "1 year old from birth to first anniversary" is just as valid as the decision to be "1 year old from first anniversary to birth".

We could just move Year 1 back to the actual year of Jesus's birth (probably 4BCE) and then this last year change would be completely meaningless.

By that logic it makes just as much sense to celebrate NYE on 11/30. The numbers change after all!

Celebrate the change in digits, if that's you want. Don't say it's a new century (or decade) when it's not.

Which year would you replace by "year zero"? 1AD or 1BC? Either way, you screw up the count of years, and every history book in existence would need to be rewritten to change all the dates.

I've never heard people call infants under 1 as "1 year old". It's always "He's 6 months old" or "She's 9 months" etc. I've never heard that designation as "1 year old" used until after the 1st birthday.

Well, no, that doesn't make any sense, unless you're celebrating the change in month. People get more excited when more digits change. But if we did decide to celebrate the new decade then, it still wouldn't be wrong.


But yes, it is the end of a decade, just not one that anybody considers worth mentioning. And 12/31/2009 was the end of a decade. It happens to be one people feel like commenting on. 12/31/2010 will also be the end of a decade, but it also will not be one that very many people feel is worth commenting on. I'm sorry you don't like the cultural decision your society has made. I also am frequently in that boat. In this case, I don't care. But it isn't wrong, either way.

I said which I would change to zero, and it would not screw up every history book in existence (only those giving BCE dates). And even if it did, they've all been screwed up many times through history. Somehow societies fail to crumble.

But hell, since it is all social convention anyway, you can do it this way and not even have to change dates in any history book:

Rule 1: For purposes of dating CE dates, Year 0 is what was 1BCE.
Rule 2: For purposes of dating BCE dates, Year 0 is what was 1CE.

All dates currently written down remain correct. You get to party with everybody else instead of getting grumpy that they aren't waiting quietly another year with you, and the only people bothered are those calculating down specific spans of time that cross the BCE/CE line and they just have to remember to add 1.


None of that, of course, is a serious suggestion. It is just intended to highlight that absolutely everything about our calendar and calendar celebrations is a social convention so picking some social conventions as more irritating is kidn of pointless. It's kind of like still being pissed off at the conversion to the Gregorian calendar from the Julian calendar. Or arguing that the Chinese are a couple months off on when the year ends and what a bunch of fools they are.

Again, my larger point is not that you're wrong, you are correct that the first decade of the 21st century ends in 363 days. But for the most part, nobody cares and that's ok.