Happy New Year 2010 !!!!

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by JWBear

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.

Yes, exactly what I was saying also. So, the first year of our calendar (a theoretical supposition anyway) started on 1/1/00, and didn't get to be called year one until it was in fact a one year old.

Oh, I guess I said I wasn't arguing this anymore as of the year 2000. Count it up any way you like. I'm through with the aughts, and I've got a lovely numeral 1 in front of a zero on my calendar that seems to agree with that.

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

Yes, exactly what I was saying also. So, the first year of our calendar (a theoretical supposition anyway) started on 1/1/00, and didn't get to be called year one until it was in fact a one year old.

Oh, I guess I said I wasn't arguing this anymore as of the year 2000. Count it up any way you like. I'm through with the aughts, and I've got a lovely numeral 1 in front of a zero on my calendar that seems to agree with that.

There was no year 0. Inventing one to support your argument is meaningless.

When you are counting a group of objects do you start with 0 or do you start with 1? If you answer "1", then why would you count years any different?

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by JWBear

When you are counting a group of objects do you start with 0 or do you start with 1? If you answer "1", then why would you count years any different?

Probably because a year is not a physical object

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by JWBear

There was no year 0. Inventing one to support your argument is meaningless.

When you are counting a group of objects do you start with 0 or do you start with 1? If you answer "1", then why would you count years any different?

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.