re: #274 palomino

Of course. I was just trying to wring some humor out of a topic that apparently doesn’t really lend itself to such. At least not in my hands.

But it does bring up the question—never really settled—of what we call the decade that just ended. Back in the early 20th century they called their first decade the “aughts”. That sounds antiquated today and hasn’t caught on with anyone whose sensibility is more modern than George Will’s. So we’ve got people calling it the “double-zeros” or the “2000’s” meaning the decade, not century.

i’ll be the last to spurn an attempt to squeeze a drop of humor out of a topic stone!

i think that the current date matters. the 1900’s = the decade when the date was 19xx. the 2000’s = the decade when the date is 20xx. once it’s 2100, saying “the 2000’s” should imply the century, where before it used to imply the decade.

or maybe we’ll all be speaking binary and making offerings to Overlord Watson in 2100…who knows…