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Originally Posted by Alex
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.
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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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex
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.
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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.