The Enid Blyton Society

Daisy wrote:Thanks for correcting it Maria Esther. I guessed the first typo but "Is Bush" really had me puzzling!

I know!! It surprised me a lot as well, and it was thanks to Rob that I realised all the mistakes I had made!

Idiot.

Anyways, a Very Happy New Year to all my fellow forumites and I hope you have an absolutely great year!

I've been to Vienna but we didn't see any concerts.

IceMaiden wrote: Here's something I heard and thought it a neat little fact:
At midnight last night every single adult on the planet will have been born in the last millenium and every child born in this one.

That's confused me! I thought this millennium runs from 2001 to 3100...

Happy New Year, y'all.

Moonraker wrote:That's confused me! I thought this millenium runs from 2001 to 3100...

Now I'm confused! How does 3100 come into it?! Mind you, I never understood the idea that the new millennium started in 2001. For me it definitely started in 2000.

Rob Houghton wrote: Mind you, I never understood the idea that the new millennium started in 2001. For me it definitely started in 2000.

No it didn't — because the "AD" calendar started with the year 1, not the year 0. So as the year 2 started, there had been one year of that century, and so on. So it wasn't until the year 2000 finished — i.e. as we changed to 2001 — that there had actually been 2000 years, supposedly, since the birth of Jesus.

(I say "supposedly" because scholars figured out a long time ago that the Christian calendar is out by several years — as far as I remember, it's because Herod the Great, who plays a (nasty) role in the Christmas story, died in what we now call the year 4 BC, so Jesus must have been born before that. But never mind. )

Rob Houghton wrote:

Moonraker wrote: That's confused me! I thought this millenium runs from 2001 to 3100...

Now I'm confused! How does 3100 come into it?!

My mistake! It ends in 3000, Rob.

I still don't understand IceMaiden's comment...

Ah! Now I'm less confused!

I do understand the fact that there was no 'year zero'...but surely there was, if we are calculating it (supposedly) from the birth of Christ...as everyone has a 'year zero' before they become one...so he was actually born in 'year zero' by my reckoning!

Anyway...practically the whole world celebrated the new millennium at midnight 1999/2000, whether its right or wrong! I know there were a lot of arguments against it at the time though.

Rob Houghton wrote:
I do understand the fact that there was no 'year zero'...but surely there was, if we are calculating it (supposedly) from the birth of Christ...as everyone has a 'year zero' before they become one...so he was actually born in 'year zero' by my reckoning!

No. Christ was (allegedly, and certainly as a starter for our yearly system) born in 1AD - anno Domini translates as "in the year of our Lord", not one year later! The year before his birth was 1BC.

Ah...okay...the light is slowly dawning!

Moonraker wrote:

Rob Houghton wrote:

Moonraker wrote: That's confused me! I thought this millenium runs from 2001 to 3100...

Now I'm confused! How does 3100 come into it?!

My mistake! It ends in 3000, Rob.

I still don't understand IceMaiden's comment...

If I've got it right, it's because everybody 18 or over born on or before 11:59pm on Dec 13 1999 is an adult. Anybody born after 12:00am on Jan 1 2000 is going to be a child. Even if they turned 18 at midnight Sunday they would still have been born within the new millenium. That's how it was explained to me anyway .

IceMaiden wrote: If I've got it right, it's because everybody 18 or over born on or before 11:59pm on Dec 13 1999 is an adult. Anybody born after 12:00am on Jan 1 2000 is going to be a child. Even if they turned 18 at midnight Sunday they would still have been born within the new millenium. That's how it was explained to me anyway .

Except that won't be true until 1 Jan 2019, when it actually IS 18 years after the start of the new millennium.

Rob Houghton wrote:Ah...okay...the light is slowly dawning!

The Romans didn't know the number zero, it was introduced by arabs after they had aquired it from the Indians (if I remember correctly) in Europe.

Does it really matter whether the new millennium started in 2000 or 2001? You all just ruined the effect of Ice Maiden's Grand Realization.

Darrell71 wrote:Does it really matter whether the new millenium started in 2000 or 2001? You all just ruined the effect of Ice Maiden's Grand Realization.

It only matters if getting things correct matter to you. Incidentally, millennium contains a double-n. (Thanks to Rob for being gracious enough not to point out my initial mistake - now corrected! )

Thanks for the explanation, IceMaiden, the light is slowly dawning for me, too! . I would never have worked that out - even if I left it year!

Moonraker wrote: Incidentally, millennium contains a double-n. (Thanks to Rob for being gracious enough not to point out my initial mistake - now corrected! )

I only spelled it correctly because with one 'm' the word was underlined in red when I typed it, so I right-clicked on it and up popped the correct spelling!

I'm not one of the best spellers, and rely on spell-check way too often!