2010 - a new decade?

Mathematically, it's a misconception.

1.1.2010 is the beginning of the end of a decade. As simple as that. Not that simple? Read on.

I was quite disturbed to hear (well... mostly, read) people saying "Happy New Year 2010. Welcome to a new decade".

1st January 2010 is the first day of the year. But, it's not the first day of the decade.

A decade is a period of 10 years, a word from Greek 'deca' which means ten.

How do you count from 1 to 10? I have never heard people start counting from 0. Do you?

We count from one. 1 is the beginning.

Following the same rule, the first year of the decade should be the year 2011.

The first month of the year is January.

The first day of January, well, you get my drift now...

So, to state the obvious, the first day of the next decade would be the 1st of January 2011.

1.1.2011 - not that nice.

1.1.11 - much, much better.

As I said in the beginning of this entry, 1st January 2010 is merely the beginning of the end of the decade. Got it now?

2000 - the new millennium?

This was also a misconception. Ehm ehm... a miscalculation.

So the whole world celebrated the new millennium 1 year earlier than it should be. There were cries from people who knows how to count that the celebration was premature. But heck, 1.1.2001 as the new millennium? The numbers are not that tasty. 'C'mon, give us a break, you nerdy people', they said.

Anyway, democracy sometimes may mean that all the idiots are united.

By the way, 1.1.11 is quite catchy.

My prediction: come that day, marketing people will tout it as 'the beginning of a new decade'.

Surely, that day will see lots of weddings and newspaper headings like 'new decade babies', 'wedded on a new decade', etc.

We'll see...