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End of Decade Question – 2009 or 2010?

PostDateIcon December 28th, 2009 | PostAuthorIcon Author: Phil Lauterjung

businessman with question bag on head 150x150 End of Decade Question 2009 or 2010?After seeing a number of articles proclaiming the end of 2009 as the end of the decade I began to question that in my mind.  I also asked my wife and a few good friends who would take my question seriously and not think that I was a complete idiot for asking – partial idiot maybe, but not a complete idiot.  Unfortunately no one was really able to answer the question fully.  My wife gave it the best shot by explaining that numbering starts at zero and goes up from there.  I knew that already, but she still humored me being the great wife that she is.

However, no one seemed to be able to explain why we count other time frames differently.  We don’t call January the zero month of the year – it’s the first month.  Depending on what type of calendar you use either Sunday or Monday is the first day of the week, not the zero day of the week.  We have seven days in a week (1 – 7), not zero plus six days.  Same with months in a year – twelve (1 – 12), not zero plus eleven.

I know I have some really smart readers of this blog, so could one of you explain this to me.  Or, are these article writers proclaiming the end of the decade a year too soon?  I would really like to lay this to rest and move into 2010 without fogging my brain wondering about this bit of minutiae.  I really did get a great education, but somehow missed a good explanation for this.  Plus, up to now, I have been unwilling to divulge my ignorance on this topic.  Now, I’m old enough that admitting to ignorance is considered a virtue.

So help me out readers and put me out of my misery.  Leave your comments and enlighten this poor blogger.

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  • Will
    Did the 80s go from 1981-1990? No? Then why should 2001-2010 be any different. Why do we do we count it this way? I don't know, we just do. Fine, there was no Year 0. Whatever. We're not interested in that, it's what we call the decades today. Maybe it's technically supposed to be 2001-2010, 1911-1920, but that's not how we usually think of it. We've started a new decade, the 10s.
  • A decade begins with year 1 (there is no year 0 in the western calendar) and ends with a year with zero.
    The first decade was year 1 to year 10, the second year 11 to 20, and so on. The first century was 1-100, the first millennium 1-1000. The second millennium started year 2001, and the first decade of that millennium ends Dec 31, 2010.
    See my blog post:
    http://www.ianchadwick.com/forum/index.php?/blo...
  • Phil, I've also seen this question around in many places. What I found is that although officially decade would be defined as eg. 2001-2010, in common use it is referred to as 2000-2009. On the other hand, by definition decade means a group of ten years. So in that sense also years 1995-2004 are a decade, right? So it is just a matter of convention (or calendar system) which ten years we define as a decade.

    It is true that as Mike pointed out, the Gregorian calendar starts with year AD 1, and thus 2001-2010 is the current decade (so still 1 year to go).

    However the ISO 8601 timeline uses astronomical year and starts with year 0, thus implying 2000-2009 for the decade (and so just past).

    Does this make sense?

    Szilard,
    http://www.ejobs.fi
  • "... the ISO 8601 timeline uses astronomical year and starts with year 0, thus implying 2000-2009 for the decade (and so just past). Does this make sense?"
    Only if you assume that from 2000 on is the FIRST millennium, not the second) which started with a 1, so therefore only has 999 years in it! Otherwise it's just bad math.
  • Szilard,
    I follow your logic, however I think that what is needed is a common agreement as to which method is commonly to be used and then stick with it. It appears that a lot of writers, both professional and otherwise, seem to use whatever they feel good about rather than a clear understanding as to why they use the standard they use.

    Any other readers like to chime in on this? Or am I beating a dead horse? It is 2010 now and perhaps time to move on and not worry about it. But, it still bugs me that we can't seem to agree on something so simple.

    Phil
  • Mike
    Here's a good link that explains why Jan. 1, 2001 was the first day of the 21st century, why Jan. 1, 2011 will be the first day of the new decade, etc. http://www.astronomyboy.com/millennium/ It basically stems from the Gregorian calendar that we use - it was developed with no year zero. So 1 AD was the first year of the first century, and all the millennia, centuries and decades technically must start counting with a year ending in "1" as a result of this. Your thought about January not being the zeroeth month of the year is right on the mark, just like the first day of the year is January 1, not January 0.
  • Mike, thanks for the link. That's what I was looking for. Now if we could only get some of these journalists and other article writers to read it. Anyone interested in helping to spread this via Twitter or other social media. Please give Mike credit for finding it and posting it.
  • TomDegan
    I can remember where I was ten years ago when this awful decade came into being. Believe it or not, when I rang in the new year on January 1, 2000, I was not only stone-cold sober - I was at church! My then-girlfriend and I attended a special midnight mass at the local Catholic church to welcome in, not only a new decade, but a new century and a new millennium. I remember feeling filled with optimism. By entering this new era, I felt, we could wipe the slate clean. Maybe this would be a new age of peace, love, brother and sisterhood. EVERYBODY SING!

    This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius!
    Age of Aquarius!
    Aquariusuuuuus!

    How utterly naive on my part, huh? By year's end, all of that hope was out the window and into the toilet. In a little less than a year, an ideologically perverted Supreme Court would assist in a stolen election by stopping the vote count in the state of Florida, installing a corrupt little frat boy with the I.Q. of a half-eaten box of Milk Duds as president of the United States. It was all downhill from that moment on. From the birth of "Reality Television" to the worst attack on American soil since the Civil War, it was quite a strange ten years to say the least. Thankfully this awful decade is a mere three days away from being consigned forever to history's scrap heap. Hallelujah.

    http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

    Tom Degan
  • Tom, interesting comment but it didn't really answer my question. Although, I now know where you stand politically. Thanks for visiting and commenting.
  • We've been getting it wrong for a long time. The first century AD was 1-100 so years ending in zero are the ends of decades, centuries and millennia.
  • Doug, thanks for your comment. You might want to check out the link that Mike posted. It does a good job of reinforcing what you said.
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