Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!oliveb!orc!bbn!bbn.com!cosell From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Happy New (Year|Decade)! Message-ID: <50251@bbn.COM> Date: 2 Jan 90 14:26:31 GMT References: <9178@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1990Jan1.225809.13097@agate.berkeley.edu> Sender: news@bbn.COM Lines: 32 johnf@stew.ssl.berkeley.edu (John Flanagan) writes: }In article bralick@cs.psu.edu (Will Bralick) writes: }>In article <9178@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: }>>Wow! I just noticed that it's the last day of both the year and the }>>decade. }> }>I hate to contradict anyone :-), especially Dave, but ... }>Much to the chagrin of C programmers everywhere, there was no }>year 0 A.D., so we will have to wait 366 days to reread this }>message. }> }As William Safire points out, this kind of argument may be technically }correct, but it goes against such strong common usage that those who insist }that the next Millenium does not begin until 1 January 2001 are going to miss }all the good parties. This doesn't belong on c.s.a, but.... Millennia and decades are *different*. People use two different methods of numbering things, ordinally and cardinally, with no real rhyme or reason as to which is used where. We happen to use ordinal names for centuries (millennia, too) but we use *cardinal* names for decades. So it is not the "eighth decade of the twentieth century", but it is the "80's".... that is, all years of the form 198?. To be sure, the "eighth decade ..." ran from jan 1 1981 through dec 31 1990, but "decade of the eighties" is quite a different matter. We can engage in debate on common vs precise usage for when the twentieth century will end, but I think that you just can't make a case for the decade-naming being anything other than the typical usage. /Bernie\