Unfortunately clarity is not the only thing that matters in writing. Flow and how awkward the writing feels matters too. Generally I'd agree with your points but sometimes "the Xth century" just sounds nicer.
Disagree. It's often confusing and requires the following mental algorithm:
1. Xth century = 100 years during [X-1]
2. 100 years during X-1 = [X-1]00s
These two steps may seem small, but they are explicit propositions that I must reiterate when I hear "Xth century." if I do not explicitly voice them in my mind, I become confused.
Maybe I’m just saying that because I’m not a native English speaker, and that’s just a personal opinion, but: "the 18th c." often sounds nicer. It is likely most readers have been taught about centuries in school anyway. And, more significantly, I always tend to read "the 1700s" to mean "1700-1710", not "1700-1799".
Not a good idea to assume that anyone has been taught anything about time scales and numbering conventions in the current education mish mash of homeschooling and red state anxiety curriculum. Education theory used to present the value of an enculturation baseline, that almost everyone would know [and accept] a certain body of information and how to speak/write from that set of givens everywhere in the country, but that idea is disintegrating through a misplaced respect for "I don't believe that" resistance.
I'm a native English speaker and 'the 18th century' does sound nicer; it's more elaborate, more artistic, and more formal. It's just also less intuitive; I was very confused by this as a child, and it still takes me a second (whereas I would read "the 1700s" as 1700-1799 immediately). But I don't think we should get rid of it, because it's beautiful.
There was no good way to refer to 2000-2009 *at the time* either. "The noughties" was awkward (why have those 10 years been naughty?), and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we could get into clear and unambiguous decades like the twenties.
I'm in favour of "noughties." An era when Limp Bizkit was popular ought to have an ugly name. Its up there with the Dark Ages and the Great Dying as a description of the time
I absolutely agree with you (dynomight). Whenever I encounter a term like "16th century", I have to do some mental gymnastics to figure out what that means, exactly. And I'm not much of a gymnast. Same thing with military time. I once ran an open-source app that was useful to me but it had the very annoying feature that everything was expressed in military time. Damn near drove me crazy. (Note that I'm really terrible at doing arithmetic in my head).
As someone from Europe, I love what you call military time (also hate that you call it that). We don't do mental arithmetic on the numbers though, we just think in them directly. When your entire society runs on this convention, it's actually very nice (not to mention unambiguous).
Also it's actually shorter, e.g. you'd see opening hours for a cafe as "8-16", or opening hours for a business "9-17", or phone support open between "11-14". Good luck cramming that information in as little space using the PM/AM abomination.
Oh, Dynomight, I'm so, so in love with your idea of using wildcards to express (written) date ranges. 200*s. 20**s. "In the 23rd year of every milennium" = *023. It's perfect!
Agreed! I always have to mentally backtrack to years when someone references "the 18th century," etc.
But your example of the person being followed (they not he) hit on another problematic development in vocabulary evolution: The use of "they" for non-binary identity. I believe that people can be whatever they like, I just wish the terminology could be less ambiguous. Why not have a new pronoun, like what happened with Ms. in the 1970s? These days I imagine a new pronoun for non-binary would be adopted quickly, and would be truly helpful to the very people who need it.
I propose we reintroduce the old English letter þ (thorn) and the singular non-binary propoun "the". For pronunciation the "th" is pronounced as in "they" or "them" and the whole thing rhymes with He and She. The object form would be "thim" and the possessive "this".
There is another advantage to this proposal: the French will be deeply annoyed by their inability to pronounce it. This will be an excellent revenge as it is their fault þ was lost in the first place.
Believe me, we tried this, and a significant portion of people's response was (and still is), "That's dumb and confusing. Why can't you just use normal pronouns like a normal person?"
I agree with you, though. I generally prefer a reasonable set of neopronouns to singular they.
"This leaves ambiguous how to refer to decades like 1800-1809. For these you should specify the wildcard digits as “the 180*s” manually write out the range. Please do not write “the 181st decade”."
"181st decade" is correct in that example. It's helpful to observe that the very last year finally matches the name. So, for example, the 19th century is from 1801 to 1900, and the 2nd millennium is from 1001 to 2000.
Similarly, if we really did name each decade, the last year of each decade would match its name as well. So 1801 to 1810 would be the 181st decade.
No problem! I also think it's helpful to note that, at the end of the day, it's just math. It's not some naming convention peculiar to the Gregorian calendar or anything like that.
For example, your fourth decade is your thirties. It's not a naming convention; it's just math.
You're right. The people saying "18th century sounds nicer" are right too. So I think Pinker should write "1700s" and Andrew Lloyd Webber is fine with writing "18th century."
I remember when I was a kid I had problems with this kind of conversion, but now in many I think it’s the opposite. If you mention for example the “18th century composers”, I’ll immediately think of Bach and Mozart, while “composers of the 1700s” will make me stop and think because it sound a bit weird.
I suppose it’s possible to get used to either convention.
Unfortunately clarity is not the only thing that matters in writing. Flow and how awkward the writing feels matters too. Generally I'd agree with your points but sometimes "the Xth century" just sounds nicer.
Disagree. It's often confusing and requires the following mental algorithm:
1. Xth century = 100 years during [X-1]
2. 100 years during X-1 = [X-1]00s
These two steps may seem small, but they are explicit propositions that I must reiterate when I hear "Xth century." if I do not explicitly voice them in my mind, I become confused.
Not everyone gets confused. For some people it's more aesthetic.
Clarity is the goal of all writing, no exceptions.
It might be your goal, but good luck getting lots of real readers if you're focused solely on clarity and not having nice flow and aesthetics.
ok
The Xth century is just 901-1000.
Oh, that's ambiguous. Xth could mean "unknown" but it could also mean "tenth", because centuries are often numbered in Roman numerals.
Maybe I’m just saying that because I’m not a native English speaker, and that’s just a personal opinion, but: "the 18th c." often sounds nicer. It is likely most readers have been taught about centuries in school anyway. And, more significantly, I always tend to read "the 1700s" to mean "1700-1710", not "1700-1799".
Not a good idea to assume that anyone has been taught anything about time scales and numbering conventions in the current education mish mash of homeschooling and red state anxiety curriculum. Education theory used to present the value of an enculturation baseline, that almost everyone would know [and accept] a certain body of information and how to speak/write from that set of givens everywhere in the country, but that idea is disintegrating through a misplaced respect for "I don't believe that" resistance.
I'm a native English speaker and 'the 18th century' does sound nicer; it's more elaborate, more artistic, and more formal. It's just also less intuitive; I was very confused by this as a child, and it still takes me a second (whereas I would read "the 1700s" as 1700-1799 immediately). But I don't think we should get rid of it, because it's beautiful.
There was no good way to refer to 2000-2009 *at the time* either. "The noughties" was awkward (why have those 10 years been naughty?), and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we could get into clear and unambiguous decades like the twenties.
I'm in favour of "noughties." An era when Limp Bizkit was popular ought to have an ugly name. Its up there with the Dark Ages and the Great Dying as a description of the time
I've heard "two-thousand oughts" used to refer to 2000-2009, which makes sense to me.
I absolutely agree with you (dynomight). Whenever I encounter a term like "16th century", I have to do some mental gymnastics to figure out what that means, exactly. And I'm not much of a gymnast. Same thing with military time. I once ran an open-source app that was useful to me but it had the very annoying feature that everything was expressed in military time. Damn near drove me crazy. (Note that I'm really terrible at doing arithmetic in my head).
As someone from Europe, I love what you call military time (also hate that you call it that). We don't do mental arithmetic on the numbers though, we just think in them directly. When your entire society runs on this convention, it's actually very nice (not to mention unambiguous).
Also it's actually shorter, e.g. you'd see opening hours for a cafe as "8-16", or opening hours for a business "9-17", or phone support open between "11-14". Good luck cramming that information in as little space using the PM/AM abomination.
> Period First Day Last Day The 18th century 1 Jan 1701 31 Dec 1800 The 1700s 1 Jan 1700 31 Dec 1799
What is going on with this sentence?
Ack, Substack's inability to deal with tables strikes again. Should be fixed now, sorry.
Oh, Dynomight, I'm so, so in love with your idea of using wildcards to express (written) date ranges. 200*s. 20**s. "In the 23rd year of every milennium" = *023. It's perfect!
Agreed! I always have to mentally backtrack to years when someone references "the 18th century," etc.
But your example of the person being followed (they not he) hit on another problematic development in vocabulary evolution: The use of "they" for non-binary identity. I believe that people can be whatever they like, I just wish the terminology could be less ambiguous. Why not have a new pronoun, like what happened with Ms. in the 1970s? These days I imagine a new pronoun for non-binary would be adopted quickly, and would be truly helpful to the very people who need it.
I propose we reintroduce the old English letter þ (thorn) and the singular non-binary propoun "the". For pronunciation the "th" is pronounced as in "they" or "them" and the whole thing rhymes with He and She. The object form would be "thim" and the possessive "this".
There is another advantage to this proposal: the French will be deeply annoyed by their inability to pronounce it. This will be an excellent revenge as it is their fault þ was lost in the first place.
Believe me, we tried this, and a significant portion of people's response was (and still is), "That's dumb and confusing. Why can't you just use normal pronouns like a normal person?"
I agree with you, though. I generally prefer a reasonable set of neopronouns to singular they.
The appropriate way to refer to the 1980s is not at all.
Agreed! Yes to clarity! No to showy!
Yes to 1600s! No to 17th century!
To deal with trailing zeros in written form I agree with laying out the range as in 1600-1610.
In speech, I support noughts or oughts as in “the sixteen hundred oughts or the two thousand noughts”
I thought 2000-2009 was called "the oughts". Pretty concise... What's not to like?
And to go with any decade 2-digit prefix, you can make it "the twenty-oughts" or "the fifteen-oughts".
The oughts is 1900-1909; the naughts is 2000-2009. At least, that's what they immediately make me think of.
"This leaves ambiguous how to refer to decades like 1800-1809. For these you should specify the wildcard digits as “the 180*s” manually write out the range. Please do not write “the 181st decade”."
Shouldn't that be the "191st decade”?
"181st decade" is correct in that example. It's helpful to observe that the very last year finally matches the name. So, for example, the 19th century is from 1801 to 1900, and the 2nd millennium is from 1001 to 2000.
Similarly, if we really did name each decade, the last year of each decade would match its name as well. So 1801 to 1810 would be the 181st decade.
Great explanation, thanks! I will use "Last year matches the name" to think about counted centuries/decades/whatever in the future.
(Also thanks Brian for bringing this up, I thought at first 191st must be right, too...)
No problem! I also think it's helpful to note that, at the end of the day, it's just math. It's not some naming convention peculiar to the Gregorian calendar or anything like that.
For example, your fourth decade is your thirties. It's not a naming convention; it's just math.
I never thought about this but it’s true! I’m never using the century thing again.
I like using the aughts to refer to 2000-2009! 19 aughts sounds fine
You're right. The people saying "18th century sounds nicer" are right too. So I think Pinker should write "1700s" and Andrew Lloyd Webber is fine with writing "18th century."
"This leaves ambiguous how to refer to decades like 1800-1809. For these you should [...] manually write out the range"
How about "the 1800s decade" and the "1800s century" ?
I remember when I was a kid I had problems with this kind of conversion, but now in many I think it’s the opposite. If you mention for example the “18th century composers”, I’ll immediately think of Bach and Mozart, while “composers of the 1700s” will make me stop and think because it sound a bit weird.
I suppose it’s possible to get used to either convention.
Yeah, I would imagine that academic historians, for example, can probably parse and mix either convention without any issue.