> ( ) by that logic, 2000 was the final year of the Nineties
<rant>
I'm annoyed by this argument, which came up again at the start of this year in dumb Twitter discussions about whether 2020 marks the beginning of a new decade.
2000 was not the final year of the Nineties. 2000 was the final year of the second millennium, and of the 20th century, and of the tenth decade of the 20th century. The Nineties were the years 1990-1999, the tenth decade of the 20th century were the years 1991-2000. These are different ranges, but we also use different terms to refer to them. There is no logical problem. There is only a problem with the assumption that these different terms "should" refer to the same concept.
So did 2020 mark the beginning of a new decade? Yes, it marked the beginning of the decade we might call the Twenty-Twenties. It did not mark the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century; that will be 2021.
</rant>
And yet people will say that 2000 is the beginning of the millenium, and 2020 is the beginning of a decade, because colloquially it's easier and understandable. And no amount of begging, pleading, or berating will change that (although it might get you punched in the face). That pope Gregory XIII neglected to include a year 0 in his calendar doesn't have to condemn us to suffer the mental gymnastics in our daily lives.
> I am unaware of any Office of Decades charged with deciding precisely what constitutes the sole definition of "decade"
ISO 8601 defines what a 'decade' is.
I mean you're free to ignore it of course, like you're free to say March has 34 days if you want... but you may have trouble communicating with people and integrating with existing systems.
8601's definition of a decade is somewhat different from common parlance. They're using it only to mean "the first digit of a two-digit year", and doesn't really apply it beyond that. If you stick to only that definition of a decade, you're going to have communication problems with human beings.
“Decade” isn’t a technical term, which is the point here. It has no intrinsic meaning except “a span of ten years”. Everything else is nominal, not technical; conflating the two is basically nerd sniping, and enlightens no-one.
There is no technical context for time defining “decades” that is anything other than nominal.
The fact that people are so hung up on this detail is itself evidence that it has no concrete philosophical foundation. Any definition you care to toss around is arbitrary.
It is pure bikeshed, and this is what gives the article its glimmer of truth that validates the satire.
I feel like this entire thread has been an elaborate attempt to demonstrate that you know an ISO definition. With the carefully constructed adjectives used to describe the definition ("standard technical meaning", "In a technical context") leading inexorably to the "ISO" gotcha.
decade
time scale unit (3.1.1.7) of 10 calendar years (3.1.2.21), beginning with a year whose year number is divisible without remainder by ten
Note 1 to entry: Decade is also used to refer to an arbitrary duration (3.1.1.8) of 10 years, however decade is not used as such in this document.
ISO 8601 is the standard technical way to refer to time and has been for ages - I guessed everyone who worked with computers and time would know about it sorry thought it was obvious.
What's not so standard, in my opinion, is that people be required to restrict their use of language to the noted restrictive sense of a definition as used "in [that] document."
Yes, yes, all of the adjectival disclaimers were used to try to align the discussion directly to how words are used "in [that] document." While the document is highly important, there are many technical contexts in which it is completely appropriate to talk about decades without the slightest consideration of how the same term might be used therein.
That is the real rub. It is like the word 'hacker'. No amount of 'but it really means' will change that. It is like the Mandela effect. People see and hear and remember what they want, but reality can be very different. But they will still go about their day with the 'wrong way'. Life will be just fine with something like this being 'wrong'.
<rant> I'm annoyed by this argument, which came up again at the start of this year in dumb Twitter discussions about whether 2020 marks the beginning of a new decade.
2000 was not the final year of the Nineties. 2000 was the final year of the second millennium, and of the 20th century, and of the tenth decade of the 20th century. The Nineties were the years 1990-1999, the tenth decade of the 20th century were the years 1991-2000. These are different ranges, but we also use different terms to refer to them. There is no logical problem. There is only a problem with the assumption that these different terms "should" refer to the same concept.
So did 2020 mark the beginning of a new decade? Yes, it marked the beginning of the decade we might call the Twenty-Twenties. It did not mark the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century; that will be 2021. </rant>