Talk:Decade

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Discussion

10⁹ years - aeon – 10⁶ years - eon – 10³ years - millennium – 10² years - century – 10¹ years - decade – 10⁰ years - year

deka-annum/deca-annum/decka-annum (Da/da/daa/dka) - 10e1 years (annum)

annum (a) - kilo-annum (ka) - mega-annum (Ma) - giga-annum (Ga)

0 to 9 or 1 to 0?

"In that sense, the first decade of the 20th century indicates a period from January 1, 1900 until December 31, 1909."

But the 20th century began in 1901. So surely the first decade of the 20th century is 1901 to 1910.

To put it differently, it's the 191st decade. Now we're in the 201st decade, which goes from 2001 to 2010. Of course, this means that pluralised multiples of 10 aren't calendar decades ... though I suppose you could call the 1990s the 199.9th decade.... -- Smjg 00:43, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well I think that a Decade like the ‘Nineties’ is from 1990 to 1999, and do not think that 1990 is still in the 1980s! Websters Twentieth Century Dictionary says of the thirties: the years from thirty through thirtynine (of a century or a person’s age). Similarly the Concise Oxford Dictionary: fifty (in pl) numbers etc, esp years of a century or life, from 50 to 59

PS: they both define Decade as ten years, or a group of ten (see below re the Netherlands, ie decade is not used for ten days in English) Hugo999 (talk) 13:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia has uncountable numbers of conflicts and errors. Wikipedia does get the page about centuries right:

"According to the Gregorian calendar, the 1st century AD started on January 1, 1 and ended on December 31, 100. The 2nd century started at year 101, the third at 201, etc. The n-th century started/will start on the year 100×n - 99. A century will only include one year, the centennial year, that starts with the century's number (e.g. 1900 is the final year in the 19th century)."

If a century starts with the year 1 then the first and subsequent decades in a century must start with 1. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.130.68.20 (talk) 20:46, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're taking it as a given that language is always consistent. • Either way, reasoning this out is original thought. We need to find sources. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 22:36, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good sources are on the NASA site and the US Navy Oceanography site. They say: Years of the Gregorian calendar, which is currently in use today, are counted from AD 1. Thus, the 1st century comprised the years AD 1 through AD 100. The second century began with AD 101 and continued through AD 200. By extrapolation we find that the 20th century comprises the years AD 1901-2000. Therefore, the 21st century began with 1 January 2001 and will continue through 31 December 2100.

How simple can it get. If the century and millennium start wit the year 1 so does the decade. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.191.99.252 (talk) 01:56, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your "if the century and millennium start wit the year 1 so does the decade" is patently original thought. You need to cite sources that specifically talk about decades. — Moreover, there is a crucial difference that you neglect: millennia and centuries are typically labeled with ordinal numbers (21st century), while decades are named with prefixes (nineteen-sixties = those years that are of the form nineteen-sixty-something = 1960–1969.) Your argument would have some validity only if decades were indeed numbered ordinally ("197th decade"). That, however, is not done, so your argument is baseless. --Jmk (talk) 09:34, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, the article is currently making statements that are out of place in an encyclopedia attempting to follow facts. It's saying things like "appropriately numbered," "proper definitions, "many people throughout the world mistake a decade," "common use for this may be for ease of grouping," "technically," "correct usage" and "should be," that are all statements biased in a normative fashion or that come through as original research. The final "although both are in common usage" also seems false considering that 0-9 is by far the more common way to group decades nowadays, as far as making lists or marking events is concerned, at least in regard to the western world and the Gregorian calendar. It's pretty established that a week starts with Sunday, for example. Most almanacs put it first and it's common parlance to say it's first. There's no such "official" way to define a decade, and the more common usage is the 0-9 use, including even special celebrations for dates like the year 2000, which are generally taken divide centuries or millenniums.

Let's also keep in mind the calendar was made retrospectively. People didn't start using it right after Christ was supposedly born but 500 to 750 years after that, and the bulk of uses have more to do with relatively recent dates rather than those of the ancient world, so it's usually not a problem if the "first decade" were to appear incomplete when dividing years in the 0-9 fashion. Who is like God? (talk) 03:33, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Section removed, as being mostly absurd. Thanks for pointing it out. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:10, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

0 to 9 is completely false. We start by counting with 1 and end with 10. Furthermore, there is no year zero in the calendar. The first decade AD began with the year 1, and therefore every consecutive decade, century and millennium all began and will forever begin with a year 1. Very simple. —85.178.72.176 (talk) 11:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And by the way: This is not original research, because according to ISO 8601:2004 the non-existent "year zero" equals the calendrical year 1 BC. See Year zero. Stop filling Wikipedia with nonsense. —85.178.72.176 (talk) 11:25, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have two issues with the current wording: First, it says "usually" 1-10 and "commonly" 0-9. These statements seem to be at odds, since "usually" and "commonly" have similar meanings in context. The only citations I have found online so far about common and accepted usage would be Dictionary.com, and it indicates no starting date requirement for a decade. (A bit of original thought here: I expect the issue is because of the proximity to the "3rd millennium" debate and the lack of a common term indicating the 2000-2009 interval as one would've had in 1990-1999 in '90s.) Second, I do not see any reputable and widely accepted sources that demand that a decade be counted from any reference point. In fact, decade has a broader meaning than even "10 year interval". See Decade Counter for example. Also, interesting point (and though not an authoritative source) Janet Jackson's album Design of a Decade indicates the 10 year period of 1986-1996. Final point: Wikipedia itself identifies decades in the xxx0-xxx9 interval in List of decades.

10 days or 10 years?

In the Netherlands, a decade means 10 days, and a decennium means 10 years. The Dutch Wikipage says that a decade meaning 10 years, is in fact wrong. What is the true meaning of ab decade, and who is right? --Robster1983 16:17, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

decade

decade means that somebody is lower in something than somebody else —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.224.177.110 (talk) 23:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]