Re: The perpetual calendar
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
>>>
>>> But there was no Year 0. 1 BCE was immediately followed by 1 CE.
>>>
>> Yes there was. 0 CE preceeded 1 CE.
>>
> The concept of zero was unknown to Dionysius Exiguus (or to anyone
> else) when he devised the system.
>
Dionysius Exiguus didn't devise any year system named "CE". (Pop quiz:
What were the initials of the name of the system that Dionysius Exiguus
did invent?)
It's humbling to see that Usenet in 2010 has yet to progress beyond
where Notes and Queries was in 1864.
Peter T. Daniels
newsgro...@NTLWorld.COM> wrote:
> >>> But there was no Year 0. 1 BCE was immediately followed by 1 CE.
>
> >> Yes there was. 0 CE preceeded 1 CE.
>
> > The concept of zero was unknown to Dionysius Exiguus (or to anyone
> > else) when he devised the system.
>
> Dionysius Exiguus didn't devise any year system named "CE". (Pop quiz:
> What were the initials of the name of the system that Dionysius Exiguus
> did invent?)
I'm beginning to think that you have a very, very tenuous command of
the English language.
No one suggested that Dennis the Skinny named his system "CE."
He devised the system that now includes the label "CE." (And many
other labels.)
Andrew Usher
> >> Yes there was. 0 CE preceeded 1 CE.
> >>
> > The concept of zero was unknown to Dionysius Exiguus (or to anyone
> > else) when he devised the system.
> >
> Dionysius Exiguus didn't devise any year system named "CE". (Pop quiz:
> What were the initials of the name of the system that Dionysius Exiguus
> did invent?)
Did Dionysius use any initials? English has AD, but other languages
have other expressions; Latin often used 'anno Christi'.
Here you can see his table: http://www.henk-reints.nl/cal/audette/denys.html.
In the table is the full form 'Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi'; he
has the short form 'Anno Domini' twice, and 'Anno Christi' once.
Probably no abbreviations were used until much later, but 'AD' is the
only one I've ever seen in inscriptions.
Andrew Usher
Peter T. Daniels
The people who put dates on cornerstones these days (since "CE" was
invented, that is) don't generally provide any era designation.
Marvin J. Mooney
>>>> But there was no Year 0. 1 BCE was immediately followed by 1 CE.
>>>>
>>> Yes there was. 0 CE preceeded 1 CE.
>>>
>> The concept of zero was unknown to Dionysius Exiguus (or to anyone
>> else) when he devised the system.
>>
> Dionysius Exiguus didn't devise any year system named "CE". (Pop quiz:
> What were the initials of the name of the system that Dionysius Exiguus
> did invent?)
DE?
CDB
> Jonathan de Boyne Pollard wrote:
>
>>>>>
>>>> Yes there was. 0 CE preceeded 1 CE.
>>>>
>>> The concept of zero was unknown to Dionysius Exiguus (or to anyone
>>> else) when he devised the system.
>>>
>> Dionysius Exiguus didn't devise any year system named "CE". (Pop
>> quiz: What were the initials of the name of the system that
>> Dionysius Exiguus did invent?)
>
Dr J R Stockton
ooglegroups.com>, Mon, 8 Mar 2010 20:18:50, Peter T. Daniels
<gram...@verizon.net> posted:
>
>The people who put dates on cornerstones these days (since "CE" was
>invented, that is) don't generally provide any era designation.
The dates on cornerstones are necessarily AD, if presumed to be on the
Julian or Gregorian Calendars, because BC had already ceased when those
were invented. AD, AH, AM can only mean Christian, Muslim, Jewish (or a
rarity).
--
(c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
Proper <= 4-line sig. separator as above, a line exactly "-- " (RFCs 5536/7)
Do not Mail News to me. Before a reply, quote with ">" or "> " (RFCs 5536/7)
Andrew Usher
> In sci.astro message <c25693ae-2696-4e7c-a878-392c0d2d0b8b@d27g2000yqf.g
> ooglegroups.com>, Mon, 8 Mar 2010 20:18:50, Peter T. Daniels
> <gram...@verizon.net> posted:
> >
> >The people who put dates on cornerstones these days (since "CE" was
> >invented, that is) don't generally provide any era designation.
>
> The dates on cornerstones are necessarily AD, if presumed to be on the
> Julian or Gregorian Calendars, because BC had already ceased when those
> were invented.
Peter clearly thinks we all need to write CE now and there's something
wrong with AD.
Andrew Usher
Hatunen
Since AD - Anno Domini, I think there's something wrong with AD.
--
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@cox.net) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> In sci.astro message <c25693ae-2696-4e7c-a878-392c0d2d0...@d27g2000yqf.g> <gramma...@verizon.net> posted:
>
>
>
> >The people who put dates on cornerstones these days (since "CE" was
> >invented, that is) don't generally provide any era designation.
>
> The dates on cornerstones are necessarily AD, if presumed to be on the
> Julian or Gregorian Calendars, because BC had already ceased when those
> were invented. AD, AH, AM can only mean Christian, Muslim, Jewish (or a
> rarity).
A century ago, dates on cornerstones routinely had "A.D." in them, and
it was just as redundant then.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> > >The people who put dates on cornerstones these days (since "CE" was
> > >invented, that is) don't generally provide any era designation.
>
> > The dates on cornerstones are necessarily AD, if presumed to be on the
> > Julian or Gregorian Calendars, because BC had already ceased when those
> > were invented.
>
> Peter clearly thinks we all need to write CE now and there's something
> wrong with AD.
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Why would you put "C.E." on a cornerstone?
It makes no sense to use "A.D." in any context that isn't explicitly
Christian, which is why "C.E." was invented in the middle of the last
century.
Evan Kirshenbaum
The Wikipedia page on "Anno Mundi" has a picture of a cornerstone
(from 1916 AD) with an "AL" date on it, for "Anno Lucis", which
reckons the world from 4000 BC, apparently used by Freemasons.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |There are two types of people -
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |those who are one of the two types
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |of people, and those who are not.
| Leigh Blue Caldwell
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(650)857-7572
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
>>>>>
>>>>> But there was no Year 0. 1 BCE was immediately followed by 1 CE.
>>>>>
>>>> Yes there was. 0 CE preceeded 1 CE.
>>>>
>>> The concept of zero was unknown to Dionysius Exiguus (or to anyone
>>> else) when he devised the system.
>>>
>> Dionysius Exiguus didn't devise any year system named "CE". (Pop
>> quiz: What were the initials of the name of the system that Dionysius
>> Exiguus did invent?)
>>
>
Peter T. Daniels
Not in the above material, you didn't -- for I never did any such
thing.
Nick
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> writes:
>
>> Dr J R Stockton <reply1...@merlyn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>> Peter T. Daniels <gramma...@verizon.net> posted:
>>>
>>> >The people who put dates on cornerstones these days (since "CE"
>>> >was invented, that is) don't generally provide any era
>>> >designation.
>>>
>>> The dates on cornerstones are necessarily AD, if presumed to be on
>>> the Julian or Gregorian Calendars, because BC had already ceased
>>> when those were invented. AD, AH, AM can only mean Christian,
>>> Muslim, Jewish (or a rarity).
>>
>> A century ago, dates on cornerstones routinely had "A.D." in them, and
>> it was just as redundant then.
>
> The Wikipedia page on "Anno Mundi" has a picture of a cornerstone
> (from 1916 AD) with an "AL" date on it, for "Anno Lucis", which
> reckons the world from 4000 BC, apparently used by Freemasons.
On an English usage point, the usual BrE expression is "foundation
stone". I see the wikipedia article "cornerstone" uses the two
interchangeably.
The metaphorical meaning is used though, suggesting that we used to use
them both. Thinking about the ones I've seen about, very few were on
the corner (unlike many of the examples shown in Wikipedia) so maybe a
change in building habits has lead to a change in word usage.
--
Online waterways route planner | http://canalplan.eu
Plan trips, see photos, check facilities | http://canalplan.org.uk
Dr J R Stockton
oglegroups.com>, Tue, 9 Mar 2010 16:16:33, Andrew Usher
<k_over...@yahoo.com> posted:
It is OK to use CE to stand for Christian Era, as long as the readers
will know that.
Consistent heathens should have a term other than 'Gregorian' to
describe the current calendar; Gregory was after all a Papal name, not
his baptismal one. 'Ugoic' and 'Buoncompagnian' sound far less elegant.
"ISO 8601" would be accurate; but no true US red-neck would use it.
--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v6.05.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - w. FAQish topics, links, acronyms
PAS EXE etc : <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/> - see 00index.htm
Dates - miscdate.htm estrdate.htm js-dates.htm pas-time.htm critdate.htm etc.
Dr J R Stockton
07:24:02, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> posted:
>The Wikipedia page on "Anno Mundi" has a picture of a cornerstone
>(from 1916 AD) with an "AL" date on it, for "Anno Lucis", which
>reckons the world from 4000 BC, apparently used by Freemasons.
So, according to Google, it is said. The cornerstone says "...
"SEPT 14 1916 - A.L. 5916" and a number of pages, including that Wiki
one, agree that A.L. = A.D. + 4000.
However, the A.D. system is a count from (fictitious) A.D. 0 = zero, and
that is Year (+-) 0 by Astronomer's Notation. Four thousand years
earlier was Astronomer's -4000, which was B.C. 4001.
There seems to be a discrepancy; you don't mean 4001 BC, but maybe you
ought to.
<http://www.freemasonry.london.museum/faqs.htm>, probably reliable,
gives +4000, does not mention B.C. 4000, and indicates that the 4000 was
an approximation to representing Ussher's B.C. 4004.
Brian M. Scott
[...]
> It is OK to use CE to stand for Christian Era, as long as
> the readers will know that.
Which is unlikely, since those who know it at all will
likely know that it stands for 'Common Era'.
Brian
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> In sci.astro message <e764802a-d66a-4bf0-a034-55c8cf97f...@z4g2000yqa.go> <k_over_hb...@yahoo.com> posted:
>
> >Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>
> >> >The people who put dates on cornerstones these days (since "CE" was
> >> >invented, that is) don't generally provide any era designation.
>
> >> The dates on cornerstones are necessarily AD, if presumed to be on the
> >> Julian or Gregorian Calendars, because BC had already ceased when those
> >> were invented.
>
> >Peter clearly thinks we all need to write CE now and there's something
> >wrong with AD.
>
> It is OK to use CE to stand for Christian Era, as long as the readers
> will know that.
No reader will "know" that, because it doesn't. It stands for "Common
Era," and it was introduced so as not to date events in the non-
Christian world according to a "Lord" the non-Christian world does not
recognize.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> In sci.astro message <1vfsxkrx....@hpl.hp.com>, Wed, 10 Mar 2010
> 07:24:02, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> posted:
>
> >The Wikipedia page on "Anno Mundi" has a picture of a cornerstone
> >(from 1916 AD) with an "AL" date on it, for "Anno Lucis", which
> >reckons the world from 4000 BC, apparently used by Freemasons.
>
> So, according to Google, it is said. The cornerstone says "...
> "SEPT 14 1916 - A.L. 5916" and a number of pages, including that Wiki
> one, agree that A.L. = A.D. + 4000.
>
> However, the A.D. system is a count from (fictitious) A.D. 0 = zero, and
> that is Year (+-) 0 by Astronomer's Notation. Four thousand years
> earlier was Astronomer's -4000, which was B.C. 4001.
No, there is no "A.D. 0" ("(fictitious)" or otherwise).
Robert Bannister
Since most people have no idea what "AD" stands for, any more than they
know the meaning of "am" or "pm" or even "ie" and "eg", I really can't
see it makes any difference. With one exception: most grown-up people
did their growing up with "AD" and most history books still have "AD" in
them. Moreover, I bet a lot of people who do use "CE" think it stands
for "Christian Era" which is as explicit as you can get.
It was a pointless change, which, in any case, has only been adopted by
a few.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> In sci.astro message <e764802a-d66a-4bf0...@z4g2000yqa.go
> oglegroups.com>, Tue, 9 Mar 2010 16:16:33, Andrew Usher
> <k_over...@yahoo.com> posted:
>> Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>>> In sci.astro message <c25693ae-2696-4e7c-a878-392c0d2d0b8b@d27g2000yqf.g
>>> ooglegroups.com>, Mon, 8 Mar 2010 20:18:50, Peter T. Daniels
>>> <gram...@verizon.net> posted:
>>>> The people who put dates on cornerstones these days (since "CE" was
>>>> invented, that is) don't generally provide any era designation.
>>> The dates on cornerstones are necessarily AD, if presumed to be on the
>>> Julian or Gregorian Calendars, because BC had already ceased when those
>>> were invented.
>> Peter clearly thinks we all need to write CE now and there's something
>> wrong with AD.
>
> It is OK to use CE to stand for Christian Era, as long as the readers
> will know that.
>
> Consistent heathens should have a term other than 'Gregorian' to
> describe the current calendar; Gregory was after all a Papal name, not
> his baptismal one. 'Ugoic' and 'Buoncompagnian' sound far less elegant.
> "ISO 8601" would be accurate; but no true US red-neck would use it.
>
Why would heathens, pagans or atheists object to a name change? People
change their names for all sorts of weird reasons and the changes are
usually accepted. Some people are remembered by their original name,
some by their changed name, some by their nom de plume and some by both
or even all their names. There is no need to attack heathens for this.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
Why would they? I see "CE" frequently on the Net - on Usenet and on the
Web. I know it is a twee version of "AD" and "Christian Era" is the most
obvious interpretation once I've given up on "Calendar E?".
--
Rob Bannister
Andrew Usher
> ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
>
> Why would you put "C.E." on a cornerstone?
If it means the same thing as AD ...
> It makes no sense to use "A.D." in any context that isn't explicitly
> Christian, which is why "C.E." was invented in the middle of the last
> century.
Funny, then, that exactly that has been done for over a thousand
years.
Andrew Usher
Andrew Usher
> >Peter clearly thinks we all need to write CE now and there's something
> >wrong with AD.
>
> It is OK to use CE to stand for Christian Era, as long as the readers
> will know that.
>
> Consistent heathens should have a term other than 'Gregorian' to
> describe the current calendar; Gregory was after all a Papal name, not
> his baptismal one. 'Ugoic' and 'Buoncompagnian' sound far less elegant.
> "ISO 8601" would be accurate; but no true US red-neck would use it.
Well I'm a 'heathen' and have no problem with 'Gregorian' or 'AD'. In
fact, I think any attempt to use something else is just silly.
Andrew Usher
Peter T. Daniels
And for how many of those thousand years have those elided agents of
the passive verb given a damn about the non-Christian majority of the
world's inhabitants?
Peter T. Daniels
In First Grade, when Sister Dorothea was teaching us about B.C. and
A.D., I ventured the guess that it stood for "After Death." She said,
"That's very, very close." And introduced us to the concept of
"Latin."
"C.E." may not have been invented yet in 1957, or if it had been, it
hadn't yet gained currency.
Peter T. Daniels
> >> Dr J R Stockton wrote:
> >>>> The people who put dates on cornerstones these days (since "CE" was
> >>>> invented, that is) don't generally provide any era designation.
> >>> The dates on cornerstones are necessarily AD, if presumed to be on the
> >>> Julian or Gregorian Calendars, because BC had already ceased when those
> >>> were invented.
> >> Peter clearly thinks we all need to write CE now and there's something
> >> wrong with AD.
>
> > It is OK to use CE to stand for Christian Era, as long as the readers
> > will know that.
>
> > Consistent heathens should have a term other than 'Gregorian' to
> > describe the current calendar; Gregory was after all a Papal name, not
> > his baptismal one. 'Ugoic' and 'Buoncompagnian' sound far less elegant.
> > "ISO 8601" would be accurate; but no true US red-neck would use it.
>
> Why would heathens, pagans or atheists object to a name change? People
> change their names for all sorts of weird reasons and the changes are
> usually accepted. Some people are remembered by their original name,
> some by their changed name, some by their nom de plume and some by both
> or even all their names. There is no need to attack heathens for this.
I recently read in a book on the construction of St. Peter's in Rome
that during that stretch there was a pope who didn't take a different
name, and all sorts of catastrophes befell him in his short reign --
and no one has tried flouting that tradition since.
Hatunen
<repl...@merlyn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In sci.astro message <1vfsxk...@hpl.hp.com>, Wed, 10 Mar 2010
>07:24:02, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> posted:
>
>>The Wikipedia page on "Anno Mundi" has a picture of a cornerstone
>>(from 1916 AD) with an "AL" date on it, for "Anno Lucis", which
>>reckons the world from 4000 BC, apparently used by Freemasons.
>
>
>So, according to Google, it is said. The cornerstone says "...
>"SEPT 14 1916 - A.L. 5916" and a number of pages, including that Wiki
>one, agree that A.L. = A.D. + 4000.
>
>However, the A.D. system is a count from (fictitious) A.D. 0 = zero, and
>that is Year (+-) 0 by Astronomer's Notation.
Perhaps, but the A.D. years are ordinal numbers and don't require
a Year Zero. they means something like, "the 1950th year of our
Lord."
Astronomers need numbers in a continuum so they established a
Year Zero.
Hatunen
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>On Mar 10, 6:29 pm, Dr J R Stockton <reply1...@merlyn.demon.co.uk>
>wrote:
>> However, the A.D. system is a count from (fictitious) A.D. 0 = zero, and
>> that is Year (+-) 0 by Astronomer's Notation. Four thousand years
>> earlier was Astronomer's -4000, which was B.C. 4001.
>
>No, there is no "A.D. 0" ("(fictitious)" or otherwise).
I find that a curious sentence. Are you saying that sometimes
fictitious things actually exist?
Peter T. Daniels
> On Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:01:30 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >On Mar 10, 6:29 pm, Dr J R Stockton <reply1...@merlyn.demon.co.uk>
> >wrote:
> >> However, the A.D. system is a count from (fictitious) A.D. 0 = zero, and
> >> that is Year (+-) 0 by Astronomer's Notation. Four thousand years
> >> earlier was Astronomer's -4000, which was B.C. 4001.
>
> >No, there is no "A.D. 0" ("(fictitious)" or otherwise).
>
> I find that a curious sentence. Are you saying that sometimes
> fictitious things actually exist?
You'll have to ask J R Stockton what it meant by "(fictitious)."
But yes, are you unfamiliar with the genre "historical fiction"?
In the last few months I read two recent novels about Frank Lloyd
Wright's complicated love life. Since little is known about the woman
for whom he left his first wife and about his second wife, they
contain much speculation and reconstruction about real people.
Jared
> On Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:29:55 +0000, Dr J R Stockton
>
> >In sci.astro message <1vfsxkrx....@hpl.hp.com>, Wed, 10 Mar 2010
> >07:24:02, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> posted:
>
> >>The Wikipedia page on "Anno Mundi" has a picture of a cornerstone
> >>(from 1916 AD) with an "AL" date on it, for "Anno Lucis", which
> >>reckons the world from 4000 BC, apparently used by Freemasons.
>
> >So, according to Google, it is said. The cornerstone says "...
> >"SEPT 14 1916 - A.L. 5916" and a number of pages, including that Wiki
> >one, agree that A.L. = A.D. + 4000.
>
> >However, the A.D. system is a count from (fictitious) A.D. 0 = zero, and
> >that is Year (+-) 0 by Astronomer's Notation.
>
> Perhaps, but the A.D. years are ordinal numbers and don't require
> a Year Zero. they means something like, "the 1950th year of our
> Lord."
>
> Astronomers need numbers in a continuum so they established a
> Year Zero.
It doesn't really make sense to me to have a year zero. Zero is a
_point_ on a number line, not an interval of unit size; logically it
should be the point in between B.C. and A.D. I think the ancients had
it right in the first place.
Peter Moylan
> Since most people have no idea what "AD" stands for, any more than they
> know the meaning of "am" or "pm" or even "ie" and "eg", I really can't
> see it makes any difference. With one exception: most grown-up people
> did their growing up with "AD" and most history books still have "AD" in
> them. Moreover, I bet a lot of people who do use "CE" think it stands
> for "Christian Era" which is as explicit as you can get.
>
> It was a pointless change, which, in any case, has only been adopted by
> a few.
>
It does have one point: you can use negative numbers in the "CE"
notation. This avoids the confusion caused by the missing zero in the
BC/AD system
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
>>>>>
>>>>> But there was no Year 0. 1 BCE was immediately followed by 1 CE.
>>>>>
>>>> Yes there was. 0 CE preceeded 1 CE.
>>>>
>>> The concept of zero was unknown to Dionysius Exiguus (or to anyone
>>> else) when he devised the system.
>>>
>> Dionysius Exiguus didn't devise any year system named "CE". (Pop
>> quiz: What were the initials of the name of the system that Dionysius
>> Exiguus did invent?)
>>
>
No. "AAID", for "anno ab Incarnatione Domini".
Here's another interesting note: Whilst Dionysius measured from Christ's
conception (taking it to be March the 25th), and Venerable Bede
(initially, before later switching to September) measured from Christ's
birth (taken to be exactly nine months later), the modern A.D. system
measures from Christ's circumcision (January the 1st, A.D. 1), and
accords with Orthodox Judaism in that respect.
Andrew Usher
> Robert Bannister wrote:
>
> > Since most people have no idea what "AD" stands for, any more than they
> > know the meaning of "am" or "pm" or even "ie" and "eg", I really can't
> > see it makes any difference. With one exception: most grown-up people
> > did their growing up with "AD" and most history books still have "AD" in
> > them. Moreover, I bet a lot of people who do use "CE" think it stands
> > for "Christian Era" which is as explicit as you can get.
> >
> > It was a pointless change, which, in any case, has only been adopted by
> > a few.
> >
> It does have one point: you can use negative numbers in the "CE"
> notation. This avoids the confusion caused by the missing zero in the
> BC/AD system
No, BCE/CE are exact substitutes for BC/AD.
Andrew Usher
Peter T. Daniels
(a) What does Orthodox Judaism care about Christ's circumcision, and
(b) It doesn't do anything of the sort. The year number changes on
Rosh Hashanah.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On Mar 10, 7:50 pm, Robert Bannister <robb...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>> > Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>>
>> > [...]
>>
>> >> It is OK to use CE to stand for Christian Era, as long as
>> >> the readers will know that.
>>
>> > Which is unlikely, since those who know it at all will
>> > likely know that it stands for 'Common Era'.
>>
>> Why would they? I see "CE" frequently on the Net - on Usenet and on the
>> Web. I know it is a twee version of "AD" and "Christian Era" is the most
>> obvious interpretation once I've given up on "Calendar E?".
The Wikipedia page on it implies that both "Christian era" and "common
era" go back at least to the seventeenth century, the latter
originally being "vulgar era" and distinguishing the dating system
from regnal dates (e.g., "in the fourth year of the reign of ...")
> In First Grade, when Sister Dorothea was teaching us about B.C. and
> A.D., I ventured the guess that it stood for "After Death." She said,
> "That's very, very close."
Hey, if Jesus could be born four years before himself, why couldn't he
die thirty years after his death?
> And introduced us to the concept of "Latin."
>
> "C.E." may not have been invented yet in 1957, or if it had been, it
> hadn't yet gained currency.
The subtitle of Morris Raphall's 1856
_Post-Biblical History of the Jews: From the Close of the Old
Testament, About the Year 420 B.C.E. till the Destruction of the
Second Temple, in the Year 70 C.E._
would seem to imply that it had been invented. Raphall doesn't bother
to explain the notation, so it was presumably already current, at
least among Jewish historians.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Well, if you can't believe what you
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |read in a comic book, what can you
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |believe?!
| Bullwinkle J. Moose
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
>>>>
>>>> Yes there was. 0 CE preceeded 1 CE.
>>>>
>>> The concept of zero was unknown to Dionysius Exiguus (or to anyone
>>> else) when he devised the system.
>>>
>> Dionysius Exiguus didn't devise any year system named "CE". (Pop
>> quiz: What were the initials of the name of the system that Dionysius
>> Exiguus did invent?)
>>
>
None to abbreviate "anno XYZ", at any rate, which is why I carefully
didn't ask what initials he used, but what the initials were of the name
that he used. (-:
> Probably no abbreviations were used until much later, but 'AD' is the
> only one I've ever seen in inscriptions.
>
"Anno Domini" itself didn't appear until much later. Not only (as
stated in another message) was Dionysius Exiguus' system not actually
the same as the modern system, but the name of the modern system in
actual use appeared centuries after him too. One of the earliest
recorded uses of "Anno Domini" in Britain was written in the reign of
Henry III ("Actum London in Domo Militiae Templi xi. Kal. Octob. Anno
Domini millesimo ducentesimo decimo nono"). Widespread use in Papal
documents dates to the 11th century, and Pope Nicholas II, although it
occurs prior to that. Abbreviation to "A.D." indeed only came about in
the 16th century.
CDB
> Andrew Usher <k_over...@yahoo.com> posted:
>> Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>>> Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> posted:
>>>>
>>>> The people who put dates on cornerstones these days (since "CE"
>>>> was invented, that is) don't generally provide any era
>>>> designation.
>>>
>>> The dates on cornerstones are necessarily AD, if presumed to be
>>> on the Julian or Gregorian Calendars, because BC had already
>>> ceased when those were invented.
>>
>> Peter clearly thinks we all need to write CE now and there's
>> something wrong with AD.
>
> It is OK to use CE to stand for Christian Era, as long as the
> readers will know that.
>
> Consistent heathens should have a term other than 'Gregorian' to
> describe the current calendar; Gregory was after all a Papal name,
> not his baptismal one. 'Ugoic' and 'Buoncompagnian' sound far less
> elegant. "ISO 8601" would be accurate; but no true US red-neck
> would use it.
>
Ugo is remembered as having worked it out himself in his spare time.
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
>
> It was a pointless change, which, in any case, has only been adopted
> by a few.
>
happen?
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
>>
>> It is OK to use CE to stand for Christian Era, as long as the readers
>> will know that.
>>
> Which is unlikely, since those who know it at all will likely know
> that it stands for 'Common Era'.
>
of Chinese history at ANU) translates "gongyuan" (公元) as "common
origin" rather than "common era". This rather implies the idea of an
origin, i.e. a year zero, in the BCE/CE coördinate system.
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
>>>>
>>>> The Wikipedia page on "Anno Mundi" has a picture of a cornerstone
>>>> (from 1916 AD) with an "AL" date on it, for "Anno Lucis", which
>>>> reckons the world from 4000 BC, apparently used by Freemasons.
>>>>
>>> and that is Year (+-) 0 by Astronomer's Notation. Four thousand
>>> years earlier was Astronomer's -4000, which was B.C. 4001.
>>>
>>> you ought to.
>>>
>>
> I find that a curious sentence. Are you saying that sometimes
> fictitious things actually exist?
>
Stockton's point about the off-by-one error. (-:
The off-by-one error isn't as significant as it may seem, by the way.
Again, Usenet hasn't really made it past Notes and Queries of 1864,
where you'll find people having this same "What is A.L.?" discussion,
and where you'll find it pointed out that there's no real authority in
the matter, and that some masons add 4000 to Gregorian year numbers
whilst others add 4004, because there's confusion as to whether the
oft-dicsussed 4 year error in Gregorian numbering should be corrected
for or not. Then there's the further confusion inspired by Mackey's
Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry, which has A.L. years sometimes starting on
January the1st and sometimes starting on March the 1st. And the
situation hasn't really become any clearer in the century and a half
since. So the off-by-one error is to a large extent lost beneath noise
of greater amplitude.
Brian M. Scott
<k_over...@yahoo.com> wrote in
<news:5bfc0a88-075b-4be2...@e1g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang,alt.usage.english,sci.astro:
> Peter Moylan wrote:
[...]
>> It does have one point: you can use negative numbers in the "CE"
>> notation. This avoids the confusion caused by the missing zero in the
>> BC/AD system
> No, BCE/CE are exact substitutes for BC/AD.
True; Peter is thinking of the astronomical year numbering,
which eschews era designators altogether.
Brian M. Scott
<rob...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:7vqsh9...@mid.individual.net> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english,sci.astro:
[(B)CE for BC/AD:]
> It was a pointless change, which, in any case, has only
> been adopted by a few.
In fact it's becoming increasingly common in the U.S.
Brian
Adam Funk
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> writes:
>> "C.E." may not have been invented yet in 1957, or if it had been, it
>> hadn't yet gained currency.
>
> The subtitle of Morris Raphall's 1856
>
> _Post-Biblical History of the Jews: From the Close of the Old
> Testament, About the Year 420 B.C.E. till the Destruction of the
> Second Temple, in the Year 70 C.E._
>
> would seem to imply that it had been invented. Raphall doesn't bother
> to explain the notation, so it was presumably already current, at
> least among Jewish historians.
Heck, Wikipedia says:
The English phrase "common Era" appears at least as early as
1708,[34] and in a 1715 book on astronomy is used interchangeably
with "Christian Era" and "Vulgar Era".[35]
(I guess if Peter replies at all, he's going to argue that the three
citations we've found do *not* constitute "gaining currency", since he
knows he's infallible.)
[34]
http://books.google.com/books?id=D_wvAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA515&dq=%22common+era%22&lr=lang_en&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=800&as_maxm_is=1&as_maxy_is=1740&as_brr=0&cd=2#v=onepage&q=%22common%20era%22&f=false
http://tinyurl.com/yctz42h
[35]
http://books.google.com/books?id=ze8ehe65hwcC&pg=RA2-PA252&dq=%22Common+Era%22+%22before+chrift%22++chriftian+common+era
http://tinyurl.com/ybu79pw
--
Usenet is a cesspool, a dung heap. [Patrick A. Townson]
Reinhold {Rey} Aman
>
> Robert Bannister wrote...
>
> [(B)CE for BC/AD:]
>
>> It was a pointless change, which, in any case, has only
>> been adopted by a few.
>
> In fact it's becoming increasingly common in the U.S.
>
speakers of English worldwide -- including Americans -- do not use and
understand those ridiculous, pompous abbreviations "BCE" and "CE."
--
~~~ Reinhold {Rey} Aman ~~~
Born A.D. 1936
Panu
He, Bub, du bist ein sehr widerlicher und widerwärtiger Typ.
Robert Bannister
> Robert Bannister wrote:
>
>> Since most people have no idea what "AD" stands for, any more than they
>> know the meaning of "am" or "pm" or even "ie" and "eg", I really can't
>> see it makes any difference. With one exception: most grown-up people
>> did their growing up with "AD" and most history books still have "AD" in
>> them. Moreover, I bet a lot of people who do use "CE" think it stands
>> for "Christian Era" which is as explicit as you can get.
>>
>> It was a pointless change, which, in any case, has only been adopted by
>> a few.
>>
> It does have one point: you can use negative numbers in the "CE"
> notation. This avoids the confusion caused by the missing zero in the
> BC/AD system
>
In that case, what is this "BCE" that I also see all over the place?
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
Sorry. Are you saying that the Chinese write in English?
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
Very few people - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, atheist - object to
days of the week named mainly after Norse gods in the Germanic languages
or Roman gods in the Romance languages, nor do you hear a clamour to
rename the months, whose names appear in even more languages. People who
get upset about a little thing like "AD" are just looking for something
to complain about.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
I like "After Death", but I suspect that most English speakers have
forgotten or never knew what the letters stand for.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
Why would Jewish historians use a dating system based on the supposed
date of Jesus' death? Since it's you, I won't ask whether you are sure
that the edition you're looking at hasn't been reprinted and tampered
with by a later publisher, but it is surprising.
--
Rob Bannister
PaulJK
Ah, you mean people who go out every night carrying baseball
bats looking for somebody to defend themself against?
pjk
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
>>>
>>> It was a pointless change, which, in any case, has only been adopted
>>> by a few.
>>>
>> China has been depopulated? This is a momentous event. When did
>> this happen?
>>
> Sorry. Are you saying that the Chinese write in English?
>
who have adopted the Common Era nomenclature and who are part of that
"few" that you wrote.
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
>
> Very few people - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, atheist - object
> to days of the week named mainly after Norse gods in the Germanic
>
... probably because in in their languages the days of the week aren't
necessarily so named. Pop quiz: Posit that you're a Muslim, speaking
Turkish. What are the days of the week named after in your language?
Posit that you're a Muslim, speaking Arabic. What are the days of the
week named after in your language? Posit that you're a Christian,
speaking Lithuanian. What are the days of the week named after in your
language?
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
>
>> "C.E." may not have been invented yet in 1957, or if it had been, it
>> hadn't yet gained currency.
>>
>
> citations we've found do *not* constitute "gaining currency", since he
> knows he's infallible.)
>
by far the better way to try to squirm out of admitting this particular
error is to re-define "gaining currency" as "obtaining financial
backing", and to wonder at length why people didn't understand that that
was the intended meaning all along. A well-practiced verbal tap-dancer,
who has been tap-dancing out of dunderheaded mistakes for years, will
have advanced strategems ready to hand, such arguing that the
subjunctive clearly implied that another universe with a wholly
different history was being discussed, and only a fool wouldn't have
seen that. Simply refuting, or even addressing, the easy-to-research
facts is the mark of a rank beginner in the discipline.
Evan Kirshenbaum
It's not surprising at all to me. It was the dating system used by
the country they lived in and the one that would be familiar to most
of their audience. The same reason the Israeli newspaper _Haaretz_
gives today's date on their website as "12.3.2010"[1]. I truly is the
"common era", the "vulgaris aerae". Earlier, they may have used "AUC"
without believing (or caring about) the ostensible date of the
founding of Rome.
Whatever the origins of the system, I don't think I know anybody,
however religious, (and can't think of anybody) who doesn't think of
this year primarily as "2010". For me, it's a historical curiosity
that happens to have its origins in a religion, like cities named "San
Francisco" or "Santa Fe" or days of the week named "Thursday" and
"Friday".
[1] On the Hebrew web site. On the English web site, interestingly,
it's "Fri., March 12, 2010 Adar 26, 5770"
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The purpose of writing is to inflate
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning,
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |and inhibit clarity. With a little
|practice, writing can be an
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |intimidating and impenetrable fog!
(650)857-7572 | Calvin
Adam Funk
> Robert Bannister <rob...@bigpond.com> writes:
>> Why would Jewish historians use a dating system based on the supposed
>> date of Jesus' death? Since it's you, I won't ask whether you are sure
>> that the edition you're looking at hasn't been reprinted and tampered
>> with by a later publisher, but it is surprising.
>
> It's not surprising at all to me. It was the dating system used by
> the country they lived in and the one that would be familiar to most
> of their audience. The same reason the Israeli newspaper _Haaretz_
> gives today's date on their website as "12.3.2010"[1]. I truly is the
> "common era", the "vulgaris aerae". Earlier, they may have used "AUC"
> without believing (or caring about) the ostensible date of the
> founding of Rome.
> [1] On the Hebrew web site. On the English web site, interestingly,
> it's "Fri., March 12, 2010 Adar 26, 5770"
They assume the people who read Hebrew can all do the conversion in
their heads, whereas many of the English-readers need help with it.
;-)
--
I don't know what they have to say
It makes no difference anyway;
Whatever it is, I'm against it! [Prof. Wagstaff]
R H Draney
>
>On 2010-03-12, Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>>
>> the Israeli newspaper _Haaretz_
>> gives today's date on their website as "12.3.2010"[1]. I truly is the
>> "common era", the "vulgaris aerae". Earlier, they may have used "AUC"
>> without believing (or caring about) the ostensible date of the
>> founding of Rome.
>
>> [1] On the Hebrew web site. On the English web site, interestingly,
>> it's "Fri., March 12, 2010 Adar 26, 5770"
>
>They assume the people who read Hebrew can all do the conversion in
>their heads, whereas many of the English-readers need help with it.
Does one date but not the other change at sunset?...r
--
"Oy! A cat made of lead cannot fly."
- Mark Brader declaims a basic scientific principle
Tak To
>>
>>
What do you mean? Chinese people have been using the same terms
to translate both AD and CE. They hardly notice the change.
Tak
--
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ta...@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr
Dr J R Stockton
08:47:50, Robert Bannister <rob...@bigpond.com> posted:
>Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>> oglegroups.com>, Tue, 9 Mar 2010 16:16:33, Andrew Usher
>> <k_over...@yahoo.com> posted:
>>> Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>>>> ooglegroups.com>, Mon, 8 Mar 2010 20:18:50, Peter T. Daniels
>>>> <gram...@verizon.net> posted:
>>>>> The people who put dates on cornerstones these days (since "CE" was
>>>>> invented, that is) don't generally provide any era designation.
>>>> The dates on cornerstones are necessarily AD, if presumed to be on the
>>>> Julian or Gregorian Calendars, because BC had already ceased when those
>>>> were invented.
>>> Peter clearly thinks we all need to write CE now and there's something
>>> wrong with AD.
>>readers
>> will know that.
>> describe the current calendar; Gregory was after all a Papal name, not
>> his baptismal one. 'Ugoic' and 'Buoncompagnian' sound far less elegant.
>> "ISO 8601" would be accurate; but no true US red-neck would use it.
>>
>
>change their names for all sorts of weird reasons and the changes are
>usually accepted. Some people are remembered by their original name,
>some by their changed name, some by their nom de plume and some by both
>or even all their names. There is no need to attack heathens for this.
Aesthetics. Ugoic sounds as if only palaeontologists could have
invented it; and dew would know how to pronounce Buoncompagnian.
Gregorian is understood wherever it needs to be, excepting perhaps the
deepest boonies.
Thunderbox appears not to quote paragraph breaks; eschew it.
--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v6.05.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - w. FAQish topics, links, acronyms
PAS EXE etc : <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/> - see 00index.htm
Dates - miscdate.htm estrdate.htm js-dates.htm pas-time.htm critdate.htm etc.
Robert Bannister
>>
>>
I somehow doubt that any of these ever used the phrase "anno domini" either.
--
Rob Bannister
Peter T. Daniels
[convenient place to put this, rather than looking for the _message
juste_]
I'm at the American Oriental Society annual meeting in St. Louis, and
I asked Peter Machinist, professor of, among other things, Jewish
History at Harvard, about the introduction of CE.
He doesn't know who, exactly, was responsible, but volunteered that
it's a post-Holocaust phenomenon.
Dr J R Stockton
localhost>, Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:02:43, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
<J.deBoynePoll...@NTLWorld.COM> posted:
Google Translate will tell you that. The Lithuanian (and Latvian) ones
are clearly derived from the numbers one to seven, and ISO 8601 agrees
with their numbering scheme. AFAIK, all of those languages are
unaffected by the beliefs of their speakers.
Yusuf B Gursey
newsgro...@NTLWorld.COM> wrote:
> > Very few people - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, atheist - object
> > to days of the week named mainly after Norse gods in the Germanic
> > languages or Roman gods in the Romance languages, [...]
>
> ... probably because in in their languages the days of the week aren't
> necessarily so named. Pop quiz: Posit that you're a Muslim, speaking Turkish. What are the days of the week
true, Turkish does not have the planetary or pagan names of the week,
but there are a few Latin based month names.
> named after in your language?
> Posit that you're a Muslim, speaking Arabic. What are the days of the
muslim and arab christians use the same names for the days of the
week. true, they are based on numbers, except for Friday and Saturday,
but the Roman names of the solar months are common (except in Libya),
except where the Syriac months are used (the Levant and Iraq), and
they too contain names of old pagan gods (like tammu:z for July after
a Sumerian / Assyrian god - king).
> week named after in your language? Posit that you're a Christian,
> speaking Lithuanian. What are the days of the week named after in your
> language?
muslim usage for the christian era is based on the word mi:la:d
("birth time"), afetr all, Jesus is recognized as an important prophet
in Islam.
Adam Funk
> Adam Funk filted:
>>
>>On 2010-03-12, Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>>>
>>> the Israeli newspaper _Haaretz_
>>> gives today's date on their website as "12.3.2010"[1]. I truly is the
>>> "common era", the "vulgaris aerae". Earlier, they may have used "AUC"
>>> without believing (or caring about) the ostensible date of the
>>> founding of Rome.
>>
>>> [1] On the Hebrew web site. On the English web site, interestingly,
>>> it's "Fri., March 12, 2010 Adar 26, 5770"
>>
>>They assume the people who read Hebrew can all do the conversion in
>>their heads, whereas many of the English-readers need help with it.
>
> Does one date but not the other change at sunset?...r
Apparently not! I checked it three times today:
At 10:20 GMT:
Mon., March 15, 2010 Adar 29, 5770 Israel Time: 12:20 (EST+7)
At 17:18 GMT:
Mon., March 15, 2010 Adar 29, 5770 Israel Time: 19:18 (EST+7)
Just now:
Mon., March 15, 2010 Adar 29, 5770 Israel Time: 22:33 (EST+7)
--
Oh, I do most of my quality thinking on the old sandbox. [Bucky Katt]
oriel36
> On Mar 10, 11:15 pm, Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:29:55 +0000, Dr J R Stockton
>
> > <reply1...@merlyn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > >In sci.astro message <1vfsxkrx....@hpl.hp.com>, Wed, 10 Mar 2010
> > >07:24:02, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> posted:
>
> > >>The Wikipedia page on "Anno Mundi" has a picture of a cornerstone
> > >>(from 1916 AD) with an "AL" date on it, for "Anno Lucis", which
> > >>reckons the world from 4000 BC, apparently used by Freemasons.
>
> > >"SEPT 14 1916 - A.L. 5916" and a number of pages, including that Wiki
> > >one, agree that A.L. = A.D. + 4000.
>
> > >However, the A.D. system is a count from (fictitious) A.D. 0 = zero, and
> > >that is Year (+-) 0 by Astronomer's Notation.
>
> > a Year Zero. they means something like, "the 1950th year of our
> > Lord."
>
> > Astronomers need numbers in a continuum so they established a
> > Year Zero.
>
> It doesn't really make sense to me to have a year zero. Zero is a
> _point_ on a number line, not an interval of unit size; logically it
> should be the point in between B.C. and A.D. I think the ancients had
> it right in the first place.
There is a year zero even if it is almost impossible to designate
where and when it began yet the technical points drawn from ancient
astronomy are so definite,so stable and so clear that I marvel at how
contemporaries tend to muddy the picture rather than promote the
fairly simple structures which link AM/PM with B.C/A.D .
I am certain that many expect hugely mathematical descriptions behind
the 24 hour day and the calendar system but nothing can be further
from the truth,there is a brief line of reasoning which connects the
average 24 hour day to the 365/366 day calendar system which requires
putting the references for the daily and annual cycles in order but
even this requires something even more fundamental - a clear
understanding what a calendar does and where it comes from.
There is a year 'zero' where it all went wrong,specifically through
John Flamsteed,who did something no other astronomer since antiquity
had done thereby obscuring the nuts and bolts of the equable day/
calendar system by referencing the daily cycle to the circumpolar
motion of the constellations around Polaris,specifically this
statement -
"... our clocks kept so good a correspondence with the Heavens that I
doubt it not but they would prove the revolutions of the Earth to be
isochronical... " Flamsteed to Moore ,1676
Flamsteed is referring to this apparent motion -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYy0EQBnqHI
Of course,explaining what went wrong first may not be the proper way
to go about things however it has the advantage of dealing with the
matter on a technical level and few,at least from my experience, have
the desire to investigate further even though it is an intellectually
satisfying exercise.So,anyone wish to state clearly what a calendar
does and why it was adopted in antiquity,a system so precise and
stable that it required a 10 day correction,through the efforts of the
Christian Church in order to reset the calendar back to the raw annual
cycle from which it emerged ?.It may help that I have not seen a
correct answer to what a calendar does and especially not from
doctorates who will attempt to obfuscate and bury the reader in a
blizzard of technical issues while they themselves do not comprehend
the system itself.
This is a worthwhile endeavor,something lovely to do in an era where
there is too much speculative agendas based on opinions and none of
the great interpretative qualities which our ancestors had,we know
this insofar as we still use their timekeeping system without really
grasping how it came about and how well it works hence this is not a
taunt but an offer to appreciate the nuts and bolts behind the
timekeeping averages without swamping the reader with technical
issues.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> I'm at the American Oriental Society annual meeting in St. Louis,
> and I asked Peter Machinist, professor of, among other things,
> Jewish History at Harvard, about the introduction of CE.
>
> He doesn't know who, exactly, was responsible, but volunteered that
> it's a post-Holocaust phenomenon.
Did you point out that you had seen evidence that it was in use in
1856? If so, what was his reaction?
And that wasn't an isolated publication. I see use in the _Journal of
Sacred Literature in 1859. (Interestingly there, I see one article
that constrasts "B.C.E" with "A.C.E" and another that contrasts "B.C."
with "C.E.".) Also in the title of a book listed in a book on the
Talmud that appears to have been printed in 1890. An 1886 _Outlines
of Jewish History_ is subtitled "From B.C. 586 to C.E. 1885" but uses
"B.C.E." in a table of dates. There are a couple of dozen Google
Books hits in the 1880s and about twice that in the 1890s, so I'd
guess that that's where it started to become common.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The look on our faces isn't confusion.
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |It's disbelief.
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |
| Jon Stewart
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Peter T. Daniels
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> writes:
>
> > I'm at the American Oriental Society annual meeting in St. Louis,
> > and I asked Peter Machinist, professor of, among other things,
> > Jewish History at Harvard, about the introduction of CE.
>
> > He doesn't know who, exactly, was responsible, but volunteered that
> > it's a post-Holocaust phenomenon.
>
> Did you point out that you had seen evidence that it was in use in
> 1856? If so, what was his reaction?
1856? I thought the single example presented earlier was from the
1830s?
Surprise.
> And that wasn't an isolated publication. I see use in the _Journal of
> Sacred Literature in 1859. (Interestingly there, I see one article
> that constrasts "B.C.E" with "A.C.E" and another that contrasts "B.C."
> with "C.E.".) Also in the title of a book listed in a book on the
> Talmud that appears to have been printed in 1890. An 1886 _Outlines
> of Jewish History_ is subtitled "From B.C. 586 to C.E. 1885" but uses
> "B.C.E." in a table of dates. There are a couple of dozen Google
> Books hits in the 1880s and about twice that in the 1890s, so I'd
> guess that that's where it started to become common.
The Jewish Encyclopedia website claims there are 50 hits for the
phrase, but it refuses to show me the 2nd through 5th pages of results.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On Mar 16, 9:32 pm, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> writes:
>>
>> > I'm at the American Oriental Society annual meeting in St. Louis,
>> > and I asked Peter Machinist, professor of, among other things,
>> > Jewish History at Harvard, about the introduction of CE.
>>
>> > He doesn't know who, exactly, was responsible, but volunteered
>> > that it's a post-Holocaust phenomenon.
>>
>> Did you point out that you had seen evidence that it was in use in
>> 1856? If so, what was his reaction?
>
> 1856? I thought the single example presented earlier was from the
> 1830s?
>
> Surprise.
That was his reaction?
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The mystery of government is not how
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |Washington works, but how to make it
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |stop.
| P.J. O'Rourke
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Peter T. Daniels
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> writes:
> > On Mar 16, 9:32 pm, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> writes:
>
> >> > I'm at the American Oriental Society annual meeting in St. Louis,
> >> > and I asked Peter Machinist, professor of, among other things,
> >> > Jewish History at Harvard, about the introduction of CE.
>
> >> > He doesn't know who, exactly, was responsible, but volunteered
> >> > that it's a post-Holocaust phenomenon.
>
> >> Did you point out that you had seen evidence that it was in use in
> >> 1856? If so, what was his reaction?
>
> > 1856? I thought the single example presented earlier was from the
> > 1830s?
>
> > Surprise.
>
> That was his reaction?
Yes, that was his reaction.
Evan Kirshenbaum
Thanks, the way you phrased it in the simple present tense as
"volunteered that it's a post-Holocaust phenomenon" rather than
something like "volunteered that he thought it was a post-Holocaust
phenomenon" made it sound as though you hadn't disabused him of his
belief.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Voting in the House of
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |Representatives is done by means of a
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |little plastic card with a magnetic
|strip on the back--like a VISA card,
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |but with no, that is, absolutely
(650)857-7572 |*no*, spending limit.
| P.J. O'Rourke
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
Peter T. Daniels
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> writes:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mar 17, 10:07 am, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> writes:
> >> > On Mar 16, 9:32 pm, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
> >> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> writes:
>
> >> >> > I'm at the American Oriental Society annual meeting in
> >> >> > St. Louis, and I asked Peter Machinist, professor of, among
> >> >> > other things, Jewish History at Harvard, about the
> >> >> > introduction of CE.
>
> >> >> > He doesn't know who, exactly, was responsible, but volunteered
> >> >> > that it's a post-Holocaust phenomenon.
>
> >> >> Did you point out that you had seen evidence that it was in use in
> >> >> 1856? If so, what was his reaction?
>
> >> > 1856? I thought the single example presented earlier was from the
> >> > 1830s?
>
> >> > Surprise.
>
> >> That was his reaction?
>
> > Yes, that was his reaction.
>
> Thanks, the way you phrased it in the simple present tense as
> "volunteered that it's a post-Holocaust phenomenon" rather than
> something like "volunteered that he thought it was a post-Holocaust
> phenomenon" made it sound as though you hadn't disabused him of his
> belief.
The phenomenon didn't go out of existence at some point between the
Holocaust and now.
Perhaps you missed my response to Brian about why I said "rabbit-like"
instead of "rabbit."
And unless you're an ultra-Generative Semanticist such as never
existed when Generative Semantics analyses were being promulgated, you
should know that people don't generally preface their opinions, or
even reports of opinions, with "I think that" or "I say that X thinks
that."
Evan Kirshenbaum
So his use of "post-Holocaust" could just as easily have been "post-
Woodstock" or "post-9/11" or "post-New Deal"? It started nearly a
century before the Holocaust and has never "gone out of existence"
since at least the 1880s. So it's a "post-Holocaust phenomenon" and a
"pre-Holocaust phenomenon" and a "has-nothing-to-do-with-the-Holocaust
phenomenon".
Personally, I'd say that calling something a "post-Holocaust
phenomenon" without meaning to imply that it arose soon after the
Holocaust (let alone that its rise had something to do with the
Holocaust) violates at least one or two Gricean Maxims (quantity
and/or relevance).
> And unless you're an ultra-Generative Semanticist such as never
> existed when Generative Semantics analyses were being promulgated,
> you should know that people don't generally preface their opinions,
> or even reports of opinions, with "I think that" or "I say that X
> thinks that."
It's not the lack of indirectness that bothered me. It was your use
of "it's" rather than "it was" and the fact that it reads as though
you left him to persist in his mistaken belief, even though you knew
it to be false.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Well, if you can't believe what you
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |read in a comic book, what can you
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |believe?!
| Bullwinkle J. Moose
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Peter T. Daniels
That is PRECISELY what he (and I) "meant to imply" (to use another
double-barreled Higher Predicate). By no means did you demonstrate
that "C.E." had anything like the widespread acceptance and usage
before WWII that it has today. It must have been so unusual -- perhaps
confined to a certain stratum of secular Jewish intellectual -- that
atttention needed to be called to it in the new political climate of
the 1950s.
> > And unless you're an ultra-Generative Semanticist such as never
> > existed when Generative Semantics analyses were being promulgated,
> > you should know that people don't generally preface their opinions,
> > or even reports of opinions, with "I think that" or "I say that X
> > thinks that."
>
> It's not the lack of indirectness that bothered me. It was your use
> of "it's" rather than "it was" and the fact that it reads as though
> you left him to persist in his mistaken belief, even though you knew
> it to be false.
It may be "false" in that a certain limited population apparently
found it useful on occasion. It is not false in describing general
usage among practitioners of the historical sciences who are sensitive
to Western chauvinism.
BTW who do you imagine the readership of the Journal of Sacred
Literature to have been, and how widely read it was? There is AFAIK
_one_ run of it in the US, which (fortunately for me) is in Ann Arbor,
where I was able to make copies of Edward Hincks's vitally important
articles on Akkadian grammar -- and it's the copy that now appears in
google books.
Evan Kirshenbaum
I see. I don't believe that you had previously made clear that the
"phenomenon" was "widespread acceptance and usage" rather than mere
use. I clearly can't address that until you define what you mean by
"widespread" and establish the level it has today.
I don't think I've found it to be particularly common outside of
Jewish writers (certainly when compared to AD/BC), and it's not clear
to me that among them it was any more or less common before World War
II than after. (And it's by no means universal among them. Richard
Elliott Friedman, for example, uses "BC" in _Who Wrote the Bible?_)
>> > And unless you're an ultra-Generative Semanticist such as never
>> > existed when Generative Semantics analyses were being promulgated,
>> > you should know that people don't generally preface their opinions,
>> > or even reports of opinions, with "I think that" or "I say that X
>> > thinks that."
>>
>> It's not the lack of indirectness that bothered me. It was your use
>> of "it's" rather than "it was" and the fact that it reads as though
>> you left him to persist in his mistaken belief, even though you knew
>> it to be false.
>
> It may be "false" in that a certain limited population apparently
> found it useful on occasion. It is not false in describing general
> usage among practitioners of the historical sciences who are
> sensitive to Western chauvinism.
Since it would otherwise be astonishing from someone who castigated
another for using "everyone" to the exclusion of women, I have to
presume that your "general usage among practitioners of the historical
sciences" includes those who are Jewish and that these Jewish scholars
changed from using "BC" to "BCE" following World War II out of
sensitivity to Western chauvanism.
> BTW who do you imagine the readership of the Journal of Sacred
> Literature to have been,
No idea. The editor of the first issue I looked at also edited _The
New Testament from Codex A_, so I'm guessing that it wasn't
exclusively Jewish.
> and how widely read it was?
Probably pretty small.
> There is AFAIK _one_ run of it in the US, which (fortunately for me)
> is in Ann Arbor, where I was able to make copies of Edward Hincks's
> vitally important articles on Akkadian grammar -- and it's the copy
> that now appears in google books.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Bullwinkle: You sure that's the
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 | only way?
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |Rocky: Well, if you're going to be
| a hero, you've got to do
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | stupid things every once in
(650)857-7572 | a while.
Robert Bannister
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> writes:
>
>> I'm at the American Oriental Society annual meeting in St. Louis,
>> and I asked Peter Machinist, professor of, among other things,
>> Jewish History at Harvard, about the introduction of CE.
>>
>> He doesn't know who, exactly, was responsible, but volunteered that
>> it's a post-Holocaust phenomenon.
>
> Did you point out that you had seen evidence that it was in use in
> 1856? If so, what was his reaction?
>
> And that wasn't an isolated publication. I see use in the _Journal of
> Sacred Literature in 1859. (Interestingly there, I see one article
> that constrasts "B.C.E" with "A.C.E" and another that contrasts "B.C."
> with "C.E.".) Also in the title of a book listed in a book on the
> Talmud that appears to have been printed in 1890. An 1886 _Outlines
> of Jewish History_ is subtitled "From B.C. 586 to C.E. 1885" but uses
> "B.C.E." in a table of dates. There are a couple of dozen Google
> Books hits in the 1880s and about twice that in the 1890s, so I'd
> guess that that's where it started to become common.
>
I wonder how the people who object to A.D. and (I think) A.C.N.* feel
about the German "vor/nach Christi Geburt", which exactly describes what
the calendar is attempting to represent.
* My Latin has gone bad - something like ante Christi natum
--
Rob Bannister
Peter T. Daniels
(a) I had no reason to suppose the expression existed before the mid
1950s/
(b) Come back when you've learned to comprehend ordinary
conversational English.
> I don't think I've found it to be particularly common outside of
> Jewish writers (certainly when compared to AD/BC), and it's not clear
> to me that among them it was any more or less common before World War
> II than after. (And it's by no means universal among them. Richard
> Elliott Friedman, for example, uses "BC" in _Who Wrote the Bible?_)
(a) Do you read history or archeology?
(b) Richard Eliot Friedman may well have been edited by his
vulgarizing publisher (a division of HarperCollins, not surprisingly).
And people I known in biblical studies don't have a terribly high
opinion of his work.
> >> > And unless you're an ultra-Generative Semanticist such as never
> >> > existed when Generative Semantics analyses were being promulgated,
> >> > you should know that people don't generally preface their opinions,
> >> > or even reports of opinions, with "I think that" or "I say that X
> >> > thinks that."
>
> >> It's not the lack of indirectness that bothered me. It was your use
> >> of "it's" rather than "it was" and the fact that it reads as though
> >> you left him to persist in his mistaken belief, even though you knew
> >> it to be false.
>
> > It may be "false" in that a certain limited population apparently
> > found it useful on occasion. It is not false in describing general
> > usage among practitioners of the historical sciences who are
> > sensitive to Western chauvinism.
>
> Since it would otherwise be astonishing from someone who castigated
> another for using "everyone" to the exclusion of women, I have to
> presume that your "general usage among practitioners of the historical
> sciences" includes those who are Jewish and that these Jewish scholars
> changed from using "BC" to "BCE" following World War II out of
> sensitivity to Western chauvanism.
So that's what you presume, is it.
Peter T. Daniels
Have a look at how it's done in French.
James Hogg
Ante Christum natum.
Then there are the Irish expressions Be Jaysus and Ah Jaysus.
--
James
Nick
> On Mar 17, 6:37 pm, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
> (a) I had no reason to suppose the expression existed before the mid
> 1950s/
>
> (b) Come back when you've learned to comprehend ordinary
> conversational English.
And there we are, the circle has just closed, we are right back at the
start of the discussion again.
And it's /your/ fault that you can't comprehend ordinary conversational
English.
It's really strange. The only person on the whole of Usenet who can
comprehend ordinary conversational English is PTD. The rest of us must
all speak something else (that is mutually comprehensible). I wonder
which of "ordinary", "conversational" or "English"?
Peter - sarcasm aside - if everybody consistently fails to understand
you and be able to hold a sensible conversation with you, do you think
you could you consider entertaining the possibility that just once or
twice a millennium your written words fail to make your intended meaning
absolutely crystal clear?
--
Online waterways route planner | http://canalplan.eu
Plan trips, see photos, check facilities | http://canalplan.org.uk
Peter T. Daniels
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> writes:
>
> > On Mar 17, 6:37 pm, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
> > (a) I had no reason to suppose the expression existed before the mid
> > 1950s/
>
> > (b) Come back when you've learned to comprehend ordinary
> > conversational English.
>
> And there we are, the circle has just closed, we are right back at the
> start of the discussion again.
>
> And it's /your/ fault that you can't comprehend ordinary conversational
> English.
>
> It's really strange. The only person on the whole of Usenet who can
> comprehend ordinary conversational English is PTD. The rest of us must
> all speak something else (that is mutually comprehensible). I wonder
> which of "ordinary", "conversational" or "English"?
>
> Peter - sarcasm aside - if everybody consistently fails to understand
> you and be able to hold a sensible conversation with you, do you think
> you could you consider entertaining the possibility that just once or
> twice a millennium your written words fail to make your intended meaning
> absolutely crystal clear?
Would you like me to start nitpicking everything Brian or ERK writes,
in the same fashion they do? It would be quite easy to do.
Hatunen
Uh,
How does that answer the question?
--
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@cox.net) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
Brian M. Scott
<rob...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:80damo...@mid.individual.net> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english,sci.astro:
[...]
> I wonder how the people who object to A.D. and (I think)
> A.C.N.* feel about the German "vor/nach Christi Geburt",
> which exactly describes what the calendar is attempting
> to represent.
German 'v./n. Chr.' are less objectionable than 'A.D.' for
the same reason that 'A.C.N.' and 'B.C.' are, though '(v.)
u. Z.' are much better than any of these.
Brian
Peter T. Daniels
> On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:33:25 +0800, Robert Bannister
> <news:80damo...@mid.individual.net> in
> sci.lang,alt.usage.english,sci.astro:
>
> [...]
>
> > I wonder how the people who object to A.D. and (I think)
> > A.C.N.* feel about the German "vor/nach Christi Geburt",
> > which exactly describes what the calendar is attempting
> > to represent.
>
> German 'v./n. Chr.' are less objectionable than 'A.D.' for
> the same reason that 'A.C.N.' and 'B.C.' are, though '(v.)
> u. Z.' are much better than any of these.
The French is "av./ap. j.-c." Both these [Ger. & Fr.] formulations are
as inappropriate to non-Christians as B.C. and A.D. because they
ascribe Messiah-hood ("Christ") to Jesus, a doctrine accepted only by
Christians (and possibly Mormons; the dioramas in the Salt Lake City
museum were less than clear about the role of Jesus in their theology).
Brian M. Scott
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:761607f4-0b0b-475c...@u33g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang,alt.usage.english,sci.astro:
> On Mar 18, 2:07 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
[...]
>> German 'v./n. Chr.' are less objectionable than 'A.D.' for
>> the same reason that 'A.C.N.' and 'B.C.' are, though '(v.)
>> u. Z.' are much better than any of these.
> The French is "av./ap. j.-c." Both these [Ger. & Fr.]
> formulations are as inappropriate to non-Christians as
> B.C. and A.D. because they ascribe Messiah-hood
> ("Christ") to Jesus, a doctrine accepted only by
> Christians (and possibly Mormons; the dioramas in the
> Salt Lake City museum were less than clear about the role
> of Jesus in their theology).
I'm sure that if you think about it hard enough, you can
figure out why this is still less objectionable than 'A.D.'
Brian
Peter T. Daniels
> On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:59:00 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
I should think Messiah-hood, being indisputably spiritual, and so
"higher" than merely mundane concerns, would be still more
objectionable than lord-hood, which can be taken as merely temporal.
Robert Bannister
[polite applause]
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
The part that puzzles me is: the small proportion of the population that
knows what A.D. stands for knows "anno domini", but "the year of our
lord" should surely offend only atheists, since all the others have a
"lord", whether they call it Adonai, Jehovah, Allah, Krishna or
whatever. Very few people would be aware of the full title "year of our
lord Jesus Christ etc." and since the remainder does not show up in the
A.D., I find it hard to accept that A.D. includes any of that stuff.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
You seem to assume that "Christ" is understood to mean "Messiah" to most
people, whereas I believe the vast majority think it's just part of
Jesus' name.
Merriam-Webster gives the following meanings:
1 : messiah
2 : jesus
3 : an ideal type of humanity
4 Christian Science : the ideal truth that comes as a divine
manifestation of God to destroy incarnate error
I would take meaning 2 as being the most commonly understood one.
--
Rob Bannister
Brian M. Scott
<rob...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:80g1da...@mid.individual.net> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english,sci.astro:
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>> On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:33:25 +0800, Robert Bannister
>> <rob...@bigpond.com> wrote in
>> <news:80damo...@mid.individual.net> in
>> sci.lang,alt.usage.english,sci.astro:
>> [...]
>>> I wonder how the people who object to A.D. and (I think)
>>> A.C.N.* feel about the German "vor/nach Christi Geburt",
>>> which exactly describes what the calendar is attempting
>>> to represent.
>> German 'v./n. Chr.' are less objectionable than 'A.D.' for
>> the same reason that 'A.C.N.' and 'B.C.' are, though '(v.)
>> u. Z.' are much better than any of these.
> The part that puzzles me is: the small proportion of the
> population that knows what A.D. stands for knows "anno
> domini", but "the year of our lord" should surely offend
> only atheists, since all the others have a "lord",
> whether they call it Adonai, Jehovah, Allah, Krishna or
> whatever.
First, this isn't true: off the top of my head you've
excluded followers of Shinto, Taoism, Vodun, Wicca,
Kemetism, Romuva, and Ásatrú, and arguably some followers of
Hinduism. Secondly, the lord in question is obviously the
Christian lord.
[...]
Brian
CDB
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>> Robert Bannister <rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> I wonder how the people who object to A.D. and (I think)
>>> A.C.N.* feel about the German "vor/nach Christi Geburt",
>>> which exactly describes what the calendar is attempting
>>> to represent.
>>
>> German 'v./n. Chr.' are less objectionable than 'A.D.' for
>> the same reason that 'A.C.N.' and 'B.C.' are, though '(v.)
>> u. Z.' are much better than any of these.
>
> The part that puzzles me is: the small proportion of the population
> that knows what A.D. stands for knows "anno domini", but "the year
> of our lord" should surely offend only atheists, since all the
> others have a "lord", whether they call it Adonai, Jehovah, Allah,
> Krishna or whatever. Very few people would be aware of the full
> title "year of our lord Jesus Christ etc." and since the remainder
> does not show up in the A.D., I find it hard to accept that A.D.
> includes any of that stuff.
to. Roughly.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> The French is "av./ap. j.-c." Both these [Ger. & Fr.] formulations
> are as inappropriate to non-Christians as B.C. and A.D. because they
> ascribe Messiah-hood ("Christ") to Jesus, a doctrine accepted only
> by Christians (and possibly Mormons; the dioramas in the Salt Lake
> City museum were less than clear about the role of Jesus in their
> theology).
According to Rex Lee's _What Do Mormons Believe?_ (written from a
Mormon position), Mormons, who consider themselves to be Christians,
consider Jesus Christ (who they so name) to be the Son of God, a
member of the Godhead, Jehovah, the Creator, a person, and Savior.
The word "messiah" does not seem to appear, at least in the chapter
discussing their conception of their deities.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Feeling good about government is like
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |looking on the bright side of any
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |catastrophe. When you quit looking
|on the bright side, the catastrophe
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |is still there.
(650)857-7572 | P.J. O'Rourke
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
>
> The part that puzzles me is: the small proportion of the population
> that knows what A.D. stands for knows "anno domini", but "the year of
> our lord" should surely offend only atheists, since all the others
> have a "lord", whether they call it Adonai, Jehovah, Allah, Krishna or
> whatever. Very few people would be aware of the full title "year of
> our lord Jesus Christ etc." and since the remainder does not show up
> in the A.D., I find it hard to accept that A.D. includes any of that
> stuff.
>
You've even ignored the fact that all of the other "lord"s weren't
(supposedly) circumcised on January the 1st, A.D. 1.
Robert Bannister
Conceded. I'm an atheist, and I just forget about all these different
gods and whether they had their private parts cut or not.
I think "Before/After Jesus" would have been a better choice. "CE" for
"Christian Era" is fine, except it implies that Christianity rules - oh,
you're going to claim it stands for "Common Era" - no doubt the people
who hate "A.D." believe that (not).
--
Rob Bannister
Brian M. Scott
<rob...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:80lc3k...@mid.individual.net> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english,sci.astro,alt.religion.kibology:
> Jonathan de Boyne Pollard wrote:
[...]
>> As M. Scott said, you've ignored rather a lot of religions there.
>> You've even ignored the fact that all of the other "lord"s weren't
>> (supposedly) circumcised on January the 1st, A.D. 1.
> Conceded. I'm an atheist, and I just forget about all these different
> gods and whether they had their private parts cut or not.
Mileage varies: I've never had the slightest use for
religion, which is one of the main reasons that I tend *not*
to forget about them.
> I think "Before/After Jesus" would have been a better choice. "CE" for
> "Christian Era" is fine, except it implies that Christianity rules - oh,
> you're going to claim it stands for "Common Era" - no doubt the people
> who hate "A.D." believe that (not).
I much prefer 'CE' to 'AD', and yes, I do take it to stand
for 'Common Era': that was how I learnt it in the first
place.
Brian
Tak To
I prefer something like "Common Year" to "Common Era". The former
is more like a convention/scale/unit (cf "Celsius") whereas the
latter implies that there was/is a common recognition about
"the era".
Tak
--
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ta...@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr
Peter T. Daniels
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
> > On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 09:46:25 +0800, Robert Bannister
> > <news:80lc3k...@mid.individual.net> in
> > sci.lang,alt.usage.english,sci.astro,alt.religion.kibology:
>
> >> Jonathan de Boyne Pollard wrote:
>
> > [...]
>
> >>> As M. Scott said, you've ignored rather a lot of religions there.
> >>> You've even ignored the fact that all of the other "lord"s weren't
> >>> (supposedly) circumcised on January the 1st, A.D. 1.
>
> >> Conceded. I'm an atheist, and I just forget about all these different
> >> gods and whether they had their private parts cut or not.
>
> > Mileage varies: I've never had the slightest use for
> > religion, which is one of the main reasons that I tend *not*
> > to forget about them.
>
> >> I think "Before/After Jesus" would have been a better choice. "CE" for
> >> "Christian Era" is fine, except it implies that Christianity rules - oh,
> >> you're going to claim it stands for "Common Era" - no doubt the people
> >> who hate "A.D." believe that (not).
>
> > I much prefer 'CE' to 'AD', and yes, I do take it to stand
> > for 'Common Era': that was how I learnt it in the first
> > place.
>
> I prefer something like "Common Year" to "Common Era". The former
> is more like a convention/scale/unit (cf "Celsius") whereas the
> latter implies that there was/is a common recognition about
> "the era".
But there is! "Era" simply refers to the numeration system. We're in
an Era in which the current year is numbered 2010. The Jewish calendar
uses an Era that begins with the creation of the universe 5770 years
ago. Before BC/AD caught on, dates were often given in years of the
Seleucid Era (in the overall course of history, the Seleucid Kingdom
wasn't terribly significant). And before that, AUC (Ab Urbe Condite,
the legendary founding of Rome). But lots of places didn't use
absolute dates like those. Mesopotamia and Egypt used kings' regnal
years; for a long time, years in Mesopotamia were named
retrospectively for an important event that occurred in that year, its
"eponym," and there are "eponym lists" that correlate those names with
regnal years.
CDB
> Tak To <ta...@alum.mit.eduxx> wrote:
>> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>>> Jonathan de Boyne Pollard wrote:
>>
>>> [...]
>>
>>>>> As M. Scott said, you've ignored rather a lot of religions
>>>>> there. You've even ignored the fact that all of the other
>>>>> "lord"s weren't (supposedly) circumcised on January the 1st,
>>>>> A.D. 1.
>>
>>>> Conceded. I'm an atheist, and I just forget about all these
>>>> different gods and whether they had their private parts cut or
>>>> not.
>>
>>> Mileage varies: I've never had the slightest use for
>>> religion, which is one of the main reasons that I tend *not*
>>> to forget about them.
>>
>>>> I think "Before/After Jesus" would have been a better choice.
>>>> "CE" for "Christian Era" is fine, except it implies that
>>>> Christianity rules - oh, you're going to claim it stands for
>>>> "Common Era" - no doubt the people who hate "A.D." believe that
>>>> (not).
>>
People all over the world, with no interest at all in Christianity,
use that system because it is the one that everyone else can
understand. Common, like.
>
>>> I much prefer 'CE' to 'AD', and yes, I do take it to stand
>>> for 'Common Era': that was how I learnt it in the first
>>> place.
>>
>> I prefer something like "Common Year" to "Common Era". The former
>> is more like a convention/scale/unit (cf "Celsius") whereas the
>> latter implies that there was/is a common recognition about
>> "the era".
>
> But there is! "Era" simply refers to the numeration system. We're in
> an Era in which the current year is numbered 2010. The Jewish
> calendar uses an Era that begins with the creation of the universe
> 5770 years ago. Before BC/AD caught on, dates were often given in
> years of the Seleucid Era (in the overall course of history, the
> Seleucid Kingdom wasn't terribly significant). And before that, AUC
> (Ab Urbe Condite, the legendary founding of Rome). But lots of
> places didn't use absolute dates like those. Mesopotamia and Egypt
> used kings' regnal years; for a long time, years in Mesopotamia
> were named retrospectively for an important event that occurred in
> that year, its "eponym," and there are "eponym lists" that
> correlate those names with regnal years.
>
what is no doubt a typo, that's "ab urbe condita" (long "a"), "from
the-City-having-been-founded". A very Latinate construction, as my
grade 12 teacher would point out to us, her large grey eyes glistening
with an enthusiasm hardly less moist than that with which she had
recounted the desecration of Hector's body.
Peter Moylan
It seems to me that the choice between "Christian" and "Common" is a
minor detail compared with the glaring inappropriateness of the word
"Era". Surely that means a span of years, with a beginning and an end.
"Christian Era" does make sense, even to non-Christians, but it does
seem to imply a commitment to switching to a new numbering system once
Christianity goes extinct.
"Common Era" has the same problem. It suggests that sooner or later we
will move on to the next era. The "Aristocratic Era", perhaps.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.