Stop using B.C.E. and C.E. you cretins!

[AlpsStranger]

Seriously. It makes you sound like a fool.

I've been doing transcription hits on Mechanical Turk for pocket change over the last few days. A fairly good set of HITs showed up and they were clearly a college professor's lectures. Not a bad job, and a lot of it is interesting enough to make the tedium more bearable. But the fool keeps saying B.C.E. and C.E.! It makes me want to go drink bleach until I die every time I hear it. It's so revoltingly childish and stupid.

Nobody who regularly reads this forum will mistake me for a Christian, but I absolutely can't stand this B.C.E./C.E. crap. If people really want a secular calendar then they should make one. Move the 0 date to something of secular significance like the moon landing or the invention of the printing press, but don't ******** me by using the Christian date with a new label hastily scrawled on it with a permanent marker.

 

[warpus]

Meh.. At first it was kind of odd but it's sort of taken off and is in use all over the place now.

You are still free to use either system.. Everyone will know what you mean.

 

[peter grimes]

I'd like to have a discussion about moving the zero date. What would make cross-culturally? What events can be seen as clearly delineating a 'before' and 'after'?

The Trinity test at Alamagordo comes to mind.

Moon landing is good, too. For that matter, wouldn't Yuri Gagarin's orbit be more appropriate?

Or perhaps there's something further back. Maybe the Columbian Exchange?

Other ideas?

 

[Benefactor]

Make 4000B.C.E the new year 0, then we can live in 6012.

 

[bombshoo]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again.

We should use ABY and BBY for our dating.

 

[peter grimes]

how is aby bby formed?

 

[Traitorfish]

Actually, the term "Common Era" dates back to the Middle Ages. It means that it's a non-regal metric, being held universally (at least by Christians), rather than attached to a particular monarch or dynasty. The modern form is popular as much because it is consistent - "2000BCE/2000CE" as opposed to "2000BC/AD2000" than- because of any secularist hand-wringing.

 

[bombshoo]

how is aby bby formed?

how girl get pragnent?

 

[Ajidica]

I vary between uses. In casual conversations I use BC/AD, but if my prof is religious and haven't explicitly said I can't use BCE/CE I use BCE/CE troll them.

As for moving the zero date, I do like the idea of using Yuri Gagarin's spaceflight. Sputnik could also work.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Actually, the term "Common Era" dates back to the Middle Ages. It means that it's a non-regal metric, being held universally (at least by Christians), rather than attached to a particular monarch or dynasty. The modern form is popular as much because it is consistent - "2000BCE/2000CE" as opposed to "2000BC/AD2000" than- because of any secularist hand-wringing.

I assumed it was a modern thing. Source?

 

[Traitorfish]

I assumed it was a modern thing. Source?

I can't speak for the validity of its particular source, because I'm getting it from elsewhere, but Wiki mentions it on the page on "common era". (And apparently it's only dated back to the 17th century, rather than the Medieval period. My mistake.)

As for moving the zero date, I do like the idea of using Yuri Gagarin's spaceflight. Sputnik could also work.

I would assume that we'd just default to 1950, given that it's already used by archaeologists to represent "the present".

 

[_random_]

I really don't have strong preference either way, and people who do annoy me. I mostly use BC/AD out of habit. Of course, we could always use the construction of the Model T or the establishment of the Starways Code as our benchmark instead.

 

[Ajidica]

The term "Common Era" is traced back in English to its appearance as "Vulgar Era"[27] to distinguish it from the regnal dating systems typically used in national law. The first use of the Latin equivalent (vulgaris aerae)[28] discovered so far was in a 1615 book by Johannes Kepler.[8] Kepler uses it again in a 1616 table of ephemerides,[29] and again in 1617.[30] A 1635 English edition of that book has the title page in English – so far, the earliest-found usage of Vulgar Era in English.[31] A 1701 book edited by John LeClerc includes "Before Christ according to the Vulgar Æra, 6".[32] A 1716 book in English by Dean Humphrey Prideaux says, "before the beginning of the vulgar æra, by which we now compute the years from his incarnation."[33][34] A 1796 book uses the term "vulgar era of the nativity".[35]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era
Not quite the Middle Ages, but certiantly not some 21st century liberal athiest hippy marxist feminist university professor.

 

[Antilogic]

Actually, the term "Common Era" dates back to the Middle Ages. It means that it's a non-regal metric, being held universally (at least by Christians), rather than attached to a particular monarch or dynasty. The modern form is popular as much because it is consistent - "2000BCE/2000CE" as opposed to "2000BC/AD2000" than- because of any secularist hand-wringing.

That, and the BCE/CE is conventionally written after the number. You are supposed to switch with BC/AD (BC after, AD before). That's annoying and stupid.

 

[Archbob]

Nah, I'm too used to it to change it.

 

[Leonel]

In the book Years of Rice & Salt, they had a scientific convention to push for the starting year to be at the date of the convention so they can get away from using the Muslim or Chinese system of time keeping.

 

[Leoreth]

I always put the AD after the year. Sue me.

 

[Borachio]

I do sympathize with the annoyance felt by the OP. But perhaps it would be better to take a deep breath and realize it doesn't really matter - in the larger scheme of things.

A cross-cultural year zero is an interesting one. And the only one that leaps out at me is the end of the last major glaciation ~15000BP ? Anything else, (moon landing, atom bomb test, manned flight into space), doesn't seem all that culturally neutral.

Not that 15000BP for year zero would be all that practical, but it would remove the need to use before and after a certain, arbitrary, date. Since geological time scales are usually BP anyway.

 

[bhsup]

B.C.E. and C.E. are pretty stupid simply because they just based it on the same as B.C. and A.D. so really what's the point? That B.C. and A.D. reference Christ? Well, so do BCE and CE since that's what they're based on.

EDIT: Also, just what was so common? Was the Far East, Europe, and the New World already in communication with one another? Was <insert other blah blah stuff that clearly isn't the case.) I can't think of anything that was common worldwide in 1 A.D.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Make 4000B.C.E the new year 0, then we can live in 6012.

And thereby make the Mayan prophecy a moot point!

I'd like to have a discussion about moving the zero date. What would make cross-culturally? What events can be seen as clearly delineating a 'before' and 'after'?

The Trinity test at Alamagordo comes to mind.

Moon landing is good, too. For that matter, wouldn't Yuri Gagarin's orbit be more appropriate?

Putting a man in orbit is setting a much lower bar for a zero date than the Moon landings. From an engineering prospective, it's not that big a deal. Especially since the capability existed before that point and soon after many other nations possesed - if not exercised - that capability. Moon landing is perfect, IMO.

Or perhaps there's something further back. Maybe the Columbian Exchange?

Other ideas?

Columbian Exchange is a good one.

How about the processing of the human genetic code?