Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Four, Three, Two.....Liftoff?

I think some of the media outlets are using Wall Street math to determine the end of the decade. I am seeing more and more "decade in review" stories, including in the Houston Chronicle. Uh......I hate to have to be the one to burst their bubble, in particular, the ones arguing that the decade started in 2000, so consequently, it ends in 2009. These people remind me of some of the grammar optional commenters who provide daily entertainment for the masses online, then when pinned down, respond with "hey, this ain't rocket surgery".......
Yes, the decade started at the END of 2000....and completed it's first year Jan.1, 2001. Last time I pulled out the abacus, and considered when the first year ended, then moved ten buttons, the end of the decade was at the end of the 10th year.......not the 9th. When our first grade teachers had us do the count to ten drill, how many of you started with zero and ended with nine? Like I said - Wall Street math......no money down, no credit check, and no payments until 2012.......no shit. On the other hand, I suppose it's easy to overlook that year of "no payments", huh? That is until you notice that by the time you start making those monthly notes, you start to notice that the cat has already shredded the end of that "new" sofa, or that the Chevy already has 40,000 miles on it, and is starting to make some funny noises and really pulls to the left...........

6 comments:

Edith Ann said...

Are you sure about this? See, I think all of 2000 was year 1, 2001, year 2, and so on. True, we don't start with zero when we count, but i was kind of fond of my theory...

Sugar Magnolia said...

Pilot is right, and this is something that has bugged me forever.


OK, think of it this way.....there was NO year zero. We started the A.D. calendar at year one, so that TEN full years after that, or one full decade, ended at the last day of year 10, not year nine. Got it? So, therefore, the 2000s actually began on Jan 01, 2001, and will end on the last minute of Dec 31, 2010, thereby giving us a full decade. The 20th century did not actually end until the last minute of Dec 31, 2000.

Anyhoo, that's always been a pet peeve of mine, because all the "end-of-decade" hoopla is not technically correct.

I know, I know, I'm an egghead and a nitpicker, but looks like I'm not the only one.

At any rate, I'm not sure it's been a (nine-year) "decade" I would like to repeat. I feel like I have the mother of all hangovers from the events of the past few years.....I think people's brains are so geared to desire neat little packages, such as ten years, and of course, it is much neater and easier for people to understand 2000-2010 as a decade, and I think by this point they are definitely ready to wrap up this sorry decade and declare it dead and done and get on with better things. That's why they want to go ahead and look forward to the "teens", although many are a year ahead of themselves.

Hate to break it to them, but we have a year yet to go before we can put a wrap on this last decade and start a new one.

Like I said, it's just human nature to not want to do the math.

Edith Ann said...

Oh, I know you all are right. I just think it is so simple to start counting on my fingers, "all of 2000, all of 2001". You know, MY neat little package...I didn't major in math. (and I think you'll agree that was a good thing!)

The other number confusing thing for me is, when playing card games where certain position move to another table, i.e., East moves up one table, West moves down one table, North moves up two tables, South moves down two tables--up is where? Toward the number 1, like in 'first place'? Or toward 10, like an elevator?
Hmmm?

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Anonymous said...

On the decade issue...

"Decade" is a relative unit of measure not confined to the particulars of the Gregorian calendar.

;)

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