[MozarkDawg]

I was ridiculed endlessly for refusing to celebrate 1999 as the end of the millennium, that when the clock struck and the calendar turned, we were not celebrating a whole new millennium, century, etc., etc. No matter how I explained, that we don't start counting from zero but from one, that the months have to pass before you can call the year, your own years of age, birthdays, etal, it didn't matter -- the world said that 2000 was the new millennium, so it was.

1980 ended the decade of the 70's, 1990 ended the decade of the 80's, Perdogg, you and I and a slight handful of others recognize this, why people can't comprehend the mathematical logic of the thing, well ... I've given up trying.

[Inyo-Mono]

I was ridiculed endlessly for refusing to celebrate 1999 as the end of the millennium, that when the clock struck and the calendar turned, we were not celebrating a whole new millennium, century, etc., etc. No matter how I explained, that we don't start counting from zero but from one, that the months have to pass before you can call the year, your own years of age, birthdays, etal, it didn't matter -- the world said that 2000 was the new millennium, so it was.

Drove me crazy too. I have a Nebraska newspaper from Jan. 1, 1901 with a headline that reads WELCOME TO THE 20th CENTURY!

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

No one was more fanatical than me in pointing out that the 21st Century began on January 1, 2001.

But the convention of “the 1900’s” or the “aughties” through the 90’s are a different matter. The eras implied by digits rather than ordinally are just straightforward - except around the start of the Christian era. Then you could say the “aughties” ran from 9 B.C. (if anyone had known they were within 10 years of Christ) through 9 A.D., a “decade” of 18 years, or the 000’s from 99 B.C. through 99 A.D., 198 years, though specifying AD or BC is usual to divide them in half, “decades” of 9 or “centuries” of 99 years. Since 00’s are not always 100 years, it would strictly not be proper to refer to them as centuries in an ordinal sense.

[humblegunner]

By that same logic, you must think that 1980 was not part of the 80s.