2020 or 2021, whatever you like. Decade simply refers to a period of ten years. There are, according to the dictionary definition (OED), no restrictions on that. It's up to the user to define what they mean.
When you are born, you aren't born one year old. You are 0 years and 001 day old when you are born and 9 years and 365 days old the day before your tenth birthday. Your tenth birthday is when the next decade starts.
When you are born, you aren't born one year old. You are 0 years and 001 day old when you are born and 9 years and 365 days old the day before your tenth birthday. Your tenth birthday is when the next decade starts.
It's a bit wordy, but it is correct.
So you are saying the decade begins at the start of the tenth year? Is a decade not 10 full years?
My musing was jan 1st 1 AD to Dec 31st 10AD was the first decade.
Jan 1st 11AD to 31stDec 20 was the second decade. Keep that going and Jan 1st 2021 is the start of the ‘next’ decade if you started from the beginning.
2020 or 2021, whatever you like. Decade simply refers to a period of ten years. There are, according to the dictionary definition (OED), no restrictions on that. It's up to the user to define what they mean.
Exactly. The answer is that it's both the start of one decade and the end of another, depending on where you are starting from.
The "80s" is the 10 years starting with an 8. The "90s" is the 10 years starting with a 9. Easy really.
A decade is certainly any period of 10 years but that's not relevant to this question. A year is 365.25 days (roughly) but everyone knows what is meant by "this year", for example. You don't have to define it by stating which period of 365 days you're referring to. The only relevant consideration here is whether there was a year zero or not. Some people clearly believe that between 1BC and 1AD there was a year called 0 (good luck finding that in the history books) and so the end of the first decade was at the end of the year 9AD (or CE as it is called now). Other people know that there was no year 0 and that the first complete period of 10 years AD was from 1AD to the end of 10AD. So the first century ended at the end of the year 100AD (on completion of 100 years). Likewise the first millennium ended at the end of the year 1000AD (on completion of 1000 years) and the second millennium ended at the end of the year 2000AD (on completion of 2000 years). No matter how untidy it may seem to have the twentieth century ending at the end of 2000 or for a new decade to begin in 2021, that is just how it is. If you want it to be prettied up and made neat so that all the years from 2020 to 2029 count as a decade you can fall back on the "any period of ten years" argument and you would be right. But really you know you're only fooling yourself.
Thé first year was 0 just like the first year of your life was 0. When a year passes you count one. So when we reached 2000, 2000 years had passed and that was the end of the millennium.
Thé first year was 0 just like the first year of your life was 0. When a year passes you count one. So when we reached 2000, 2000 years had passed and that was the end of the millennium.
Comments
(Unless you think the first year was year 0).
Exactly why I started this thread :-)
They were happy days. Two games into our 12 match winning streak which saw us romp to promotion, despite not winning any of our last 7 games!
When you are born, you aren't born one year old. You are 0 years and 001 day old when you are born and 9 years and 365 days old the day before your tenth birthday. Your tenth birthday is when the next decade starts.
It's a bit wordy, but it is correct.
His date of birth was 01 January 1AD
Therefore he would have been 10 on 01 Jan 11AD
The decade begins on the 1st of Jan each year ending in 1 not 0
The 6o's started 1/1/60 not 1/1/61
The 70's started 1/1/70 not 1/1/71 etc
The noughties started 1/1/2000 and the twenties started 1/1/2020.
The OP was "Is 2020 the end of a decade or start of a new decade?"
My first question is, what is the start date? I have assumed 01.01.0000 (AD) is the start date and so forth.
Make it more simple. 01.01.2010 - 31.12.2019 is a decade.
Of course, as a measurement hypothetically a decade could start from any moment in time.
The "80s" is the 10 years starting with an 8. The "90s" is the 10 years starting with a 9. Easy really.
numbering convention for years goes 4BC, 3BC, 2BC, 1BC, 1AD, 2AD
The first year (AD 1) was 1, there isn’t an AD 0.