I don't count any different than you do, but if I'm counting how many years have passed, then it seems logical to wait until 365 days have actually gone by before I count the first "object' (a year).

I'm not being entirely arbitrary. In the Julian scheme of things, there was no historical year zero - 1 BC was followed immediately by 1 AD (but then the current calendar wasn't instituted until freakin' 325). Astronomers decided they needed a year zero to keep the BC to AD line consistent with the mathematical number line when measuring the universe, so BC1 is scientifically year zero. Yay! I have scientifically valid reason to insist on a year zero! (It is concurrent with historical 1BC, admittedly) Anyway, the calendar got adjusted and modified by Gregory in the 15th century, rendering any accurate start date to the current common era kind of wonky.
(And then there are those 11 missing days somewhere in the 1700s, but who has time?)

Calendars are a social convention no matter how you slice it. Psychologically, the "x0 through x9" where x equals the current integer seems like a sound, psychologically pleasing and reasonably logical way to group these objects we call decades. I have no objection to you or anyone reckoning it otherwise, but, really, it's not arbitrary and I'm not stupid.

Calendar years have no zero (as we've decided to count them) because they are ordinals. When you count physical objects you're using cardinals. I had a first kiss, I never had a zeroth kiss. There was a time when I had had zero kisses then I had had one kiss.

We could easily have had a year zero if we wanted one. All we had to do was decide to count years as cardinals rather than ordinals. Doing so would violate no physical laws (in fact computers generally start counting at zero -- such as the first character in a string occupies position 0 in that string -- and it works just find) of counting.

And in fact, we do have a year zero when talking about years. We use them for ages. You get your birthday cake on the first anniversary of your birth. However, when your mom got her "baby's first year" scrapbook she didn't wait until you were one to start using it. Your entire first year of life you were 0 years old (and that's why in this period when small fractions of time are significant we break it down, nobody now cares that I am 4 months past my last birthday).

All of which is irrelevant to the question of the decade just celebrated other than the fact that having a year zero would avoid this silly conversation every time it comes up.

You're correct that there is almost another full year to go in the first decade of the 21st century. Good for you. Almost nobody cares, you'll be all alone at your "end of the decade" party next year.

It is also correct that the first decade of the 2000s just ended. For the most part, people inclined to reflect on the passage of a decade choose to do it then.

Neither of these landmark dates are inherently any more significant than the other. The universe is indifferent.

And it is worth noting that not once did I see a reference to the just ended decade as "the end of the first decade of the 21st century." So nobody's been wrong.

Is this the "Math Help" thread?

I don't know - are you making salsa?

Indeed.

Especially since this calendar is supposedly based on Jesus.

My take is to celebrate the passage of time when other people do so. It's more fun that way.

Though some do enjoy a semantics argument, I guess, even if they aren't big fans of Jesus.

Pity the poor man who works a Friday through Tuesday schedule where most work Monday through Friday. Most of the people respond to the question, "How's it going?" by saying "Friday!" Will anyone understand him if he simply says "Friday."

Nice of you to be so rude and dismissive. Fvck you too.

BTW... I don't celebrate the "end of the decade". What a silly thing to do.

Also, just because some misconceptions are popular doesn't make them any more true.

You're too much man for me, being with one so unworthy as me would leave you feeling cheapened and soulless. Besides, you're the one who started the eye rolling and telling other people they were doing it wrong.

Good for you. I don't celebrate new years or birthdays, either (though some years I do take advantage of the fact that friends are gathering and I like to spend time with them; but I don't care about the calendar year ending). Attaching great significance to odometer rolls holds no great interest for me either. I was asleep around 11pm, usually remember my birthday when someone else tells me, and roll my eyes at the "significance" given to anniversary dates of significant events (will SF TV stations please shut up about the 1906 earthquake and I'll probably crawl into a hole around 9/11/2011 and just wish everybody's shut up).

Do I win the pissing contest over who is more disinterested in the subject being vociferously debated?

That is true. And I hardly think anybody around here would believe I'm one to let a technical inaccuracy lie just because it makes people feel fuzzy. For example, I was all in favor of making sure people realized that celebrations on 12/31/2000 were a year early for noting the completion of the second millennium. That, though, had nothing to do with people preferring to party about the end of the 1000s and 1900s and 1990s and 1999. Just so long as they didn't tell me it was the end of the second millennium. Party hearty.

You, however, have yet to point out anybody suffering from a misconception. You have also failed to show any reason your preferred significant decade is better than other people's preferred significant decade, instead claiming that yours is the only significant decade despite the obvious fact that you're wrong.

But insofar as you state strongly positions with which nobody disagrees, you get that glow from being right.

Nice of you to be so rude and dismissive.

Seriously - how can those sentences be in the same post?