3 Jan
2011
3 Jan
'11
12:49 p.m.
On 2011 Jan 2, at 10:49 AM, Tony Duell wrote:
The change in centurt has been celebrate at the start of years ending
'01' for quite some time ...
They can call it a new millennium if they choose. They were celebrating
the beginning of the sensibly labelled millennium spanning 2000-2999.
Or they were celebrating the third millennium, even if off by a year
according to one definition.
The astronomical calendar declares a year 0 immediately prior to year
1. By that calendar a new millenium started at year 2000.
It isn't important. Millennia, centuries, decades are generally
referred to casually regardless (e.g. the 20's). If one needs
precision, one specifies it in more formal manners. There are differing
reasonings, definitions and perspectives on the matter. Only the
pedantically insistent feel the need to call other people wrong,
foolish or arses over such matters.
...
As I said, Janurary 1st has no particular cignificance. It's close to
the
winter solstice, but it is not the winter solstice. It is aribtrary.
It's not arbitrary. It was intended to mark the winter solstice /
beginning of the seasonal cycle, and originally coincided with the
solstice. It now marks 10/11 days after the winter solstice. ANAICF,
periodic errors in the Julian calendar accumulated over the centuries,
the cumulative error was accounted for in the switch to the Gregorian
calendar but for religious reasons Easter took precedence over the
solstice, and the displacement of Jan 1st from the solstice was fixed
at 10/11 days.
It is a histoirical fact that at least in the UK, the
start of the
20th
centruy was celebrated at the start of 1901. If you want to have the
new
millennium starting in 2000 (and thus a new decade starting in 2010),
you
ahve to be able to justify having only 99 years in the 20th century.
...
Millenium (latin Mille Anus) : 1000 people making
a right arse of
themselves by celebrating a new millennium in the wrong year.
Well, it is now an 'historical fact' that hundreds of millions to
billions of people celebrated 1999->2000 as the millennial turnover, far more than 2000->2001. Those people make no
more an arse of
And every one of them was _wrong_.
Look, you can celebrate whenever you like (but I wish you'd do it in a
way that doesn't upsed me, and more importantly my cats), and you're
welcome to delebrate multiple carries in the year_increement if you
like.
But don't call it a new millennium. For that matter a new yrear is meaningless. AFAIK
January 1st doesn't
correspond exactly to any special point in the earth's orbit.
The beginning/end of a year is in relationship to the winter solstice
-
a natural phenomenon of significant consequence to humans and human
society - albeit displaced slightly for historical reasons (cumulative
error before a better way of dealing with the error was developed).