Lester Hill, Minot

I’ve been hearing people referring to the end of the year 2019 as the end of the second decade of the 21st Century. That is not true. 2019 is the 9th year of the second decade of the 21st Century. the third decade of the 21st Century will begin January 1, 2021.

We count our years the same way we count our money. We count both in groups of 10. If I owe you $10 that debt is not repaid after I repay you only $9.

It was the same with the turn of the 21st Century. The final year of the 20th Century was the year 2000. The first year of the 21st Century began January 1, 2001. If I owed you $2,000 you wouldn’t consider the debt repaid if I paid you $1,999. This is obvious to most people when dealing with money but when it is applied to the abstraction of years people tend to get confused. Yet the same system is used for both.