Subject:
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Re: When did the 3rd millennium start?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Tue, 2 Jan 2001 05:26:13 GMT
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Viewed:
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838 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.geek, Matthew Miller writes:
> If you want to call last New Year's Day the start of the millennium, you've
> got to call last year "2001", and re-cast all previous dates as well.
You're totally ignoring my point. My point is that the relevancy of how we call
things is so little, that what makes the most sense to me is to say that
decades start when the last digit of the year turns 0, centuries start when the
last two digits turn 00 and millenia start when the last three digits turn 000.
I don't care WHAT you're counting FROM because it's totally artificial. Now
your birthday isn't totally artificial. There's a pretty recognizable, and
generally well documented event which happens, so it is reasonable to claim
that my 38th year is nearly over, and that my age is 37. But 2001 is the 2000th
year since what? A totally made up date with no relevance since it isn't even
the 2000th year of the use of that particular numbering system. Heck, by that
kind of logic, you might argue that I'm now 38, after all, I was born in 1963
and it's now 2001, never mind that it's 2 more months til the anniversary of my
birthday.
Of course at this point it's pretty irrelevant. We now both agree that we're in
the 21st century (for whatever good that does) and in the 3rd millenium (for
whatever good that does). Since our use of things like "the 80s" doesn't work
very well when the clock rolls over, we haven't yet settled what to call the 10
year span of which we're in the 2nd year of, but I do kind of like the term
"the naughties"...
Frank
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: When did the 3rd millennium start?
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| (...) You act as if what people did for all the centuries when our system WAS in use do not matter. In 1901 this was not an issue; they treated just as people did in 1801, and 1701. It is only our century that decided not to. (23 years ago, 2-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
| | | Re: When did the 3rd millennium start?
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| (...) Doesn't matter. It's the *2001st* year since we started counting. Not 2000th: I think that's what you're missing. *Last* year was the 2000th year; that's why it was called "2000". (...) Well, as I said in my post, you are *in* your 38th year. (...) (23 years ago, 2-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: When did the 3rd millennium start?
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| (...) That's when the *1900s* start -- just as the 80s start at 1980. (...) Sure. But for whatever reason, we do say that we are currently in the year 2001. Note that it doesn't work like birthdays, which count the number of years *completed*. (...) (23 years ago, 2-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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