So, the year 2000 was the end of the 20th century? and the year 1900 was the end of the 19th century? Just doesn't work for me. As soon as it ticks over into the next 10 it's a new decade, and as soon as it ticks over into the new hundred it's a new century.

Bleh.

Bugger this for a game of soldiers, I'm off to bed! :P

Goodnight, dear. :D

Does anyone honestly worry about this stuff?

Just dig up an old thread about when the new millenium started.

Ffs. I was going to bed at *looks at last post* five past one. What fucking time is it now? Oh that's right, it's half fecking four.

Made the mistake of checking my new itunes download of Hamlet...it's 3 hours long. I was just checking the first few minutes, because my last download was mislabelled and they'd given me the wrong programme. Ended up watching the whole damn thing.

Fun an'all, but was a really stoopid thing to do!

This is correct. As as Dana pointed out we are in the Twenty-first Century. Why? because the first one started at 0 and ended on the last year of 999. So the year of 1000 was the second century.

There was no zero.

At the end of year 1, there had been one year.
At the end of year 10, there had been one decade.
At the end of year 100, there had been one century.
At the end of year 1000, there had been one millenium.

It goes backwards the same way. The first century BC includes the years 1BC to 100BC, the second century BC goes from 101BC to 200BC, and so on. There's a zero point between 1BC and 1AD, but since there's no zero year, new decades, centuries, etc, will always start on a year ending with 1.

Interestingly, if there were a year zero, BC would still have the same problem. AD would go 0-9, 10-19, etc., but BC would still go from 1BC-10BC, 11BC-120BC, etc. To make it work in a way that marks new centuries with '00 years, we would need two year zeros, 0BC and 0AD.

This is done (though not with years) in some numbering systems.

You are right, there was no zero, it was BC. but there was a 1 - 99AD. Correct?

Which was 99 years long, not a century.

There was no year 1. There was no year 10. There was no year 100.

The whole friggin system of naming years was invented in the year that we now call 525 by Dionysius Exiguus. The whole system was invented and applied retroactively to over half a millennium.

The year 1 AD never existed in that name. It was a year that was named after the Roman Consuls of the time and the year of their terms.

So it's not like people were starting the counting at 1 or 0. The counting started at 532.

The 70s are a decade that consists of 1970-1979
The 80s are a decade that consists of 1980-1989
The 90s are a decade that consists of 1990-1999
This is all self evident.

The next decade fucked everyone up and caused all this confusion because nobody knew what to call it, but the new millennium started on 1/1/2000, and this new decade started on 1/1/2010.

I ended up calling last decade the Aughts, which is a dumb name, but I have no idea what to call this decade. The Tensies? I guess we're in the Tweens now and in three years we will be in the Teens.

Good point glatt. I forgot about the whole Roman Consuls thing and was to lazy to look it up. I was trying to wrap my head around the logic of it all and it was barely making sense.

It applies to any counting system that starts with one, though.
Nicknames like that are OK, and a decade can be any ten year period. Heck, it doesn't even need to start on Jan 1! You've been alive a decade when you turn 10, no matter when that was (allowing for leap years, of course). And, like you said, the "teens" won't even be a decade - it will be seven years long.

But if you want "the 20th century" to mean the same thing as "the 1900s", then "the first century" would only be 99 years long.

This is how I see it.

The aughts?

Over here we called it the Naughties. Is that just us, or do you have that there too?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I can live with that. The first century isn't well documented anyway. A little fudging there will be just fine.