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Author makes a good point. "1700s" is both more intuitive and more concise than "18th century". The very first episode of Alex Trebeck's Jeopardy in 1984 illus
by gcp123 2y ago
Author makes a good point. "1700s" is both more intuitive and more concise than "18th century".
The very first episode of Alex Trebeck's Jeopardy in 1984 illustrates how confusing this can be:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDTxS9_CwZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDTxS9_CwZA
The "Final Jeopardy" question simply asked on what date did the 20th century begin, and all three contestants got it wrong, leading to a 3-way tie.
- semireg 2y agoThe right answer was, and still is: Jan 1, 1901
- readthenotes1 2y agoHow can that be if 15 of those centuries are on the Julian calendar?
- whycome 2y agoAlso, when they switched things in 1582: https://www.britannica.com/story/ten-days-that-vanished-the-switch-to-the-gregorian-calendar#:~:text=The%20most%20surreal%20part%20of,skipping%20any%20major%20Christian%20festivals https://www.britannica.com/story/ten-days-that-vanished-the-.... > The most surreal part of implementing the new calendar came in October 1582, when 10 days were dropped from the calendar to bring the vernal equinox from March 11 back to March 21. The church had chosen October to avoid skipping any major Christian festivals.
- pdonis 2y agoThe century in which the switch occurred (which was different in different countries) was shorter than the others. As were the decade, year, and month in which the switch occurred.
- Archelaos 2y agoThe "original" Julian calendar was indifferent to year number systems. The Romans typically used the consular year, although Marcus Terentius Varro "introduced" the ab urbe condita (AUC) system in the 1st century BC, which was used until the Middle Ages. From the 5th to the 7th century, the anno Diocletiani (also called anno martyrum) after emperor Diocletian was used primarily in the eastern empire (Alexandria), or the anno mundi (after the creation of the world). It was Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, who replaced the anno Diocletiani era with the Anno Domini era. His system become popular in the West, but it took a long time until it also was adopted in the East. Its application to years before the birth of Christ is very late: we come across it first in the 15th century, but it was not widespread before the 17th century. All these systems used the Julian system for months and days, but differed in terms of the year and (partialy) in the first day of the year.
- hgomersall 2y agoNo, the first century began Jan 1, 0000. Whether that year actually existed or not is irrelevant - we shouldn't change our counting system in the years 100, 200 etc.
- Izkata 2y agoThe calendar goes from 1 BC to 1 AD, there is no year 0.
- hgomersall 2y agoWhat does that even mean? Do we allow for the distortion due to the shift from the Julian to Gregorian calendars, such that the nth year is 11 days earlier? Of course not, because that would be stupid. Instead, we accept that the start point was arbitrary and reference to our normal counting system rather than getting hung up about the precise number of days since some arbitrary epoch.
- pdonis 2y ago> What does that even mean? It means just what it says. In the common calendar, the year after 1 BC (or BCE in the new notation) was 1 AD (or CE in the new notation). There was no "January 1, 0000".
- hgomersall 2y agoAs I said twice, whether that date actually existed or not is irrelevant.
- pdonis 2y ago> whether that date actually existed or not is irrelevant. No, it isn't, since you explicitly said to start the first century on the date that doesn't exist. What does that even mean?
- 2y ago
- glitcher 2y agoIncorrect, this answer wasn't given in the form of a question ;)
- drivers99 2y agoThere are numerous common concise ways to write the 18th century, at the risk of needing the right context to be understood, including “C18th”, “18c.”, or even “XVIII” by itself.
- anyfoo 2y agoThese are even more impractical, so I wonder what your point is? I can come up with an even shorter way to say 18th century, by using base26 for example, so let's denote it as "cR". What has been gained?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- drivers99 2y agoThese are ones that are actually used, not just ones I made up. Sorry that wasn't more clear. I really hate conversation on this site.
- anyfoo 2y agoThat wasn't the point. The point is that they are still more impractical than what the original comment suggested, shorter and common or not. > I really hate conversation on this site. Original commenter may feel the same about your reply.
- Kwpolska 2y ago> very first It’s actually the second. > Trebeck's Trebek's*
- card_zero 2y agoLet's reform Alex Trebek's name, it's difficult.
- c0balt 2y agoAnd while we are at it, Tim Apple
- bitwize 2y agoThere was an airport-novel series about a future where people's surnames are the company they work for. It was called Jennifer Government. Some of the characters in Death Stranding, namely the main one, have a given-name, profession, employer convention -- as in Sam Porter Bridges.
- monkeyfun 2y agoAhhh, reminding me of Nation-States too. What a curious little website / online community.
- krsdcbl 2y agoDeath strandings naming is not too far from very common naming conventions throughout history, it's a nicely subtle touch. Glenn Miller, Gregory Porter and Sam Smith just happen to have been more inclined to make music.
- nkrisc 2y agoAnd in the far future of that future surnames like Government or PepsiCo or Alcoa will be as common as Smith, Fletcher, and Miller.
- runarberg 2y agoIn Icelandic the 1-based towards counting is used almost everywhere. People do indeed say: “The first decade of the 19th century” to refer to the 18-aughts, and the 90s is commonly referred to as “The tenth decade”. This is also done to age ranges, people in their 20s (or 21-30 more precisely) are said to be þrítugsaldur (in the thirty age). Even the hour is sometime counted towards (though this is more rare among young folks), “að ganga fimm” (or going 5) means 16:01-17:00. Speaking for my self, this doesn’t become any more intuitive the more you use this, people constantly confuse decades and get insulted by age ranges (and freaked out when suddenly the clock is “going five”). People are actually starting to refer to the 90s as nían (the nine) and the 20-aughts as tían (the ten). Thought I don’t think it will stick. When I want to be unambiguous and non-confusing I usually add the -og-eitthvað (and something) as a suffix to a year ending with zero, so the 20th century becomes nítjánhundruð-og-eitthvað, the 1990s, nítíu-og-eitthvað and a person in their 20s (including 20) becomes tuttugu-og-eitthvað.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jrockway 2y agoOn the other hand "1700s art" sounds like trash compared to "18th century art".
- rz2k 2y agoHow about if you say "settecento"? Maybe it is a new confusion that they drop a thousand years, and maybe it would imply Italian art specifically.
- lucb1e 2y agoJust to make sure I understood this, that would be used as "17th settecento" to mean 1700s right? (This Xth century business always bothered and genuinely confused me to no end and everyone always dismissed my objections that it's a confusing thing to say. I'm a bit surprised, but also relieved, to see this thread exists. Yes, please, kill all off-by-one century business in favor of 1700s and 17th settecento or anything else you fancy, so long as it's 17-prefixed/-suffixed and not some off-by-anything-other-than-zero number)
- animaomnium 2y ago"settecento" can be read as "seven hundred" in Italian; gramps is proposing to use a more specific word as a tag for Italian art from the 1700s. Of course, 700 is not 1700, hence the "drop 1000 years". The prefix seventeen in Italian is "diciassette-" so perhaps "diciasettecento" would be more accurate for the 1700s. (settecento is shorter, though.) Hope this clarifies. Not to miss the forest for the trees, to reiterate, the main takeaway is that it may be better to define and use a specific tag to pinpoint a sequence of events in a given period (e.g. settecento) instead of gesturing with something as arbitrary and wide as a century (18th century art).
- worstspotgain 2y agoYou're looking for millesettecento [1]. Italian doesn't do 10-99 hundreds, just 1-9 hundreds and 1-99 thousands. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMIGnMs4VZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMIGnMs4VZA
- masswerk 2y agoSo shouldn't this be the "0-episode"? ;-) (0, because only after the first question, we have actually 1 episode performed. Consequently, the 1-episode is then the second one.)
- darby_nine 2y ago> Author makes a good point. "1700s" is both more intuitive and more concise than "18th century". Yea, but a rhetorical failure. This sounds terrible and far worse than alternatives. If we want a better system we'll need to either abandon the day or the Gregorian (Julian + drift) caliendar.
- tempodox 2y agoLogic is in short supply and off-by-one errors are everywhere. Most people don't care. I think it's more doable to learn to just live with that than to reprogram mankind.
- zepolen 2y agoThat's what most people think and the world keeps trucking along. It's the rare people that don't who actually change the world.
- tempodox 2y agoYou can change the world if you make it easier to meet a need enough people have. Persuading everyone they're holding it wrong is not that.
- zepolen 2y agoThose are exactly the same thing if you convince everyone they are holding it wrong by holding it right.
- jdhzzz 2y agoe.g. Fosbury flop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosbury_flop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosbury_flop)
- lukan 2y ago"You can change the world if you make it easier to meet a need enough people have" True and should not be forgotten in this debate. But clear communication is a need many people have.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
- d0mine 2y agoThere is no "0" year, 1 is the 1st year, so 100th year is still the 1st century, therefore 2nd century starts in 101 and 20th in 1901.
- notfed 2y agoI find this decree frustrating. Someone could have just as easily said "the 'first' century starts at 1 BC" to account for this.
- 38 2y agoOr better yet just year 0, why not? Do we say the 80s start in 1981?
- rdlw 2y agoThe concept of zero was not popularized in 500s Europe, when the system was devised.
- karatinversion 2y agoAnd also, the system is a direct descendant of regnal numbering, where zero wouldn’t have made sense even if invented (there is no zeroth year of Joe Biden’s term of office).
- Thorrez 2y agoThen what is the last year of the first century BC? 2 BC? Now there's an off-by-2!
- karatinversion 2y agoDo you also count the first decade of your life from January 1st of the year before you were born?
- Zambyte 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning
- swyx 2y agothat is fascinating trivia. you could do a whole Jeopardy on Jeopardy facts alone
- dantyti 2y agoWhat about languages that don’t have an equivalent to “the Xs” for decades or centuries? Also, 1799 is obviosly more than 1700, as well as 1701 > 1700 – why should the naming convention tie itself to the lesser point? After one’s third birthday, the person is starting their fourth year and is not living in their third year. I feel this is relevant https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- zozbot234 2y ago1700s means 1700–1709, i.e. roughly the first decade in the 18th century. Just like '2000s'. The OP acknowledges this issue and then just ignores it.
- Viliam1234 2y agoI have a solution that would work in writing, but not sure how to pronounce it: 1700s means 1700–1709 1700ss means 1700–1799 To go one step further: 2000s means 2000-2009 2000ss means 2000-2099 2000sss means 2000-2999
- ajuc 2y agoDepends on the language. Century being 3 syllables really makes it long in English, but it's still 5 syllables vs 5 syllables. In Polish: [lata] tysiącsiedemsetne (6 [+2] syllables) vs osiemnasty wiek (5 syllables).