End of the decade isn’t until the end of 2010
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Kudos to The News! You got it right! In contrast to big city papers, and television and radio networks, you did not say that Dec. 31, 2009 marked the end of a decade.
When we count something, be it cars, goals in a hockey game or anything else, we do not start with “0” but with “1.” If we started with 0 then our counting would go as follows. The first car would be 0, the second would be 1 and the third 2. Obviously, such counting is illogical, but that is how most journalists count the years of a decade. They imply that they start with 0 and thus, when they have counted 9, as in the end of the year 2009, marks the completion of a decade.
A decade consists of 10 years and the correct way of counting, of course, is to begin with 1. Year 2 is the second year. Year 9 is the ninth year and year 10 is the tenth year. Accordingly, when year 10 is completed, then we have come to the end of the decade.
Dec. 31, 2010 will therefore, mark the completion of the present decade. That will be a good time to celebrate.
Of course, many of us also celebrated the end of year 2009 and the beginning of year 2010.
That was a happy occasion for many of us but it marked the conclusion of a year, not of a decade.
John H. Redekop
