The last day Anno Domini 2007

Today  is a special  day - it is the 18^th of December 2007 as reckoned by the Julian calendar and   there is one week to go until Christmas.

Of course as reckoned according to the Gregorian Calendar it is the 31^st of December and therefore the last day of 2007. And since this is the calendar recognized by our civil authorities and the only one known to the majority of us, we  will all celebrate the new year tonight and recover tomorrow.

It is long forgotten but the English speaking world used to begin the new year on the 25^th of March. The change came in 1751 when Great Britain adopted the Gregorian Calendar, a matter of no import except to historians who if they don't watch themselves can get caught out as to the year in which a particular event occurred if it happened in January, February or March in the years  before 1751.

The  AD/BC designation for years (or more formally  "Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi" and "Before Christ") was first devised in the 5^th century  has been  in  common  use  throughout Europe since the 8^th.   This system has now  become a relic from our unsophisticated past. Amongst the enlightened it has been replaced be CE/BCE. CE stands for Common Era or occasionally it is said to stand for Christian Era. It is easy to translate between the two systems, the actual number remains the same, all that is required is to drop the AD from the front   and replace it with a CE to the rear. A process the labels on most museum exhibits have already undergone.

The CE/BCE system  for  designating years  may not last long.  The ancient  city of Oxford, a town that owes its very existence to Christian  scholarship, is engulfed in controversy over the ringing of church bells  and  the imams call to prayer being broadcast  through loud speakers from a local mosque.

Who knows how that one will play out but pity the poor museum curators - sometime in the future they are   likely    to be required to translate all the dates on their exhibits   yet again. And translating dates from the Gregorian calender to those of the Islamic lunar calender is a lot more tricky than dropping AD from the front of the number and replacing it with CE to  the rear.

To assist  Microsoft has produced the Kuwaiti algorithm which can translate Gregorian dates to those of the Hijri (Islamic) calendar, well sort of.

But I wouldn't be at all surprised that even with the software the process  produces more headaches than tonights New Years eve  over indulgence. 

Comments

[Sean]

Surprised you are advocating it Andrei. From Wikipedia:
"Common Era notation has been adopted by many non-Christians, and also by some Christians wanting to be sensitive to non-Christians. The use of BCE and CE has been criticized by some who favor the BC/AD system as being "the result of secularization" and "political correctness"."

Are you Psycho Milt in disguise?! ;-)

[andrei]

Surprised you are advocating it Andrei

What makes you think I am advocating the use of CE/BCE over AD/BC Sean?

I guess your internet browser doesn't recognize the "sarcastic tone" tag

[Paul Litterick]

Sean, you missed a bit. That quotation from Wikipedia begins "Originating among Christians at least as early as 1617 (at first in Latin), Common Era notation has been adopted by many non-Christians..."

It's 17th Century political correctness gone mad, that's what it is.

If you are going to quote, quote fully. The Wikipedia article is here

[Sean]

Andrei - fair call. Your paragraph was of a factual nature though my browser sarcasm tag did miss the "This system has now become a relic from our unsophisticated past. Amongst the enlightened..." bit.

Paul - I haven't listed Andrei's quote in it's entirety because no point in including the irrelevant bits. I have however included a "..." so it is more clear the quote includes more text. Sorry.

[Greg Bourke]

For information purposes CE is obviously redundant serving only to erase Christian anachronisms.

I read Andrei as pointing to the possibility that once you gleefully separate yourself from one cultural heritage, Christianity in this case, you must actively fill the vacuum.

Indifferent consumerism will probably not suffice and Islam will be happy to occupy the space formerly filled by Christianity.

[andrei]

Paul your 17th century PCism
was in fact written as vulgaris aerae or Vulgar Era which might seem apt to a dispassionate observer of this evenings festivities.

So are we about to usher in 2008 VE?

[Sam Finnemore]

Given that "vulgaris aerae" actually does translate to "common era", not "vulgar era", I think CE will do just fine instead.

[robk]

CE etc is pretty funny. The measurement is still calculated from the (approximate) birth of Jesus the Messiah of the Jews.

Inverse whitewashing! (Blackwashing??)

Happy new year! :-)

[peter]

Above all, the BC and AD syndrome is an indication of how much power a religion can sew up.

Interesting to know that secular versions of these abbreviations were available as a byproduct of the Enlightenment.

[mike]

Surprised you are advocating it Andrei.
Posted by: Sean | December 31, 2007 at 09:58 AM

He makes up for advocating it by including some token muslim bashing.