Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
What we seem to be arguing is if we want to count the years ordinally (21-30) or cardinally 20-29. I don't like cardinally since the fence post for that would result in a "decade" containing 9 years (0001-0009) since the Anno Domini system started at year 1 not year 0.
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The Anno Domini system start has no relevance to the counting of an arbitrary 10 sequential years. Decades are not centuries and are not millennia. All of your examples are correct - those are all decades. When we refer to the "50s" we are commonly referring to the years 1950 to 1959. Year One was 1950 and 1959 was Year 10 of the "50s" decade. The same thing with "The Roaring 20s" meaning 1920 - 1929 and "The Gay 90s" meaning 1890 - 1899.
XKCD said it best:
https://xkcd.com/2249/