On 1/17/20 1:38 AM, Don Pearce wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jan 2020 09:10:38 GMT, (Don Pearce) wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jan 2020 13:28:05 -0800, Tobiah wrote:
So what was the first year of the first decade in our current CE
reckoning? No need to bring mythical figures into it - straight
question.
The first year was year 1, making the first decade span the years
1 through 10, the second decade starting at year 11. Or is there
a trick to your question?
No trick. You make my point perfectly. Decades start on the year that
ends in a 1, not a 0.
So when I was 10 years old, I had not lived a decade, because
"Decades start on the year that ends in a 1" whereas
my first decade started with a year that ended in 6.
I'm just saying that when someone refers to the 50's say, it's
as arbitrary as saying "the evens". It's a description that
we can use to group some of the past years together so we can
easily agree on which ones we're talking about.
I blame the schools lousy maths skills. When you were ten years old
you had lived a decade. Just you were one year old you had lived a
year.
d
And that is what happens when you post before you are awake. Let me
try again...
I blame the schools for lousy maths skills. When you were ten years
old you had lived a decade, just as when you were one year old you had
lived a year.
You are reiterating my point. I may have failed to convey the irony in my
earlier reply. The first decade of our current calendar may have ended on
the first day of year 11, but a decade per se has an arbitrary start point.
I'd even venture to say that it need not begin at the start of a calendar
year.
One popular dictionary's entry:
1) a period of ten years: the three decades from 1776 to 1806.
2) a period of ten years beginning with a year whose last digit is zero:
the decade of the 1980s.
3) a group, set, or series of ten.