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sverige | 6 years ago

I predict the vast majority of people will never again understand that new decades, centuries, and millenia begin on January 1st of years ending in '1' and not '0' because there never was a Year 0. Everyone knew that 50 years ago, which is why Kubrick didn't call it '2000: A Space Odyssey.'

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acheron|6 years ago

Everyone needs to stop this hypercorrection nonsense. That only applies to centuries and millennia because they're ordinal numbers. You say "20th century" and "21st century". But you say "1990s" and "2020s". Unless you start saying "201st decade" you are wrong.

Also, nobody ever complained about decades until just this year, because it's obviously wrong. I don't even remember it in 2010. I think it's a bunch of kids who vaguely remember the 21st century starting in 2001 (which is correct, of course) but never realized the reason, and are having hypercorrection issues now that they're older.

linuxftw|6 years ago

If you refer to this decade as the 2020's, then it's stupid to say the 2020's refer to 2021-2030.

throwawayhhakdl|6 years ago

The 21st century is 2001-2100 because we count them and the first century was 1-100 (there is no 0AD).

But nobody refers to decades as the nth decade. We in fact refer to them by their leading digit. So no, it’s the 20s again.

chapium|6 years ago

It seems very arbitrary to go against the public's common assumption on this one.