This might be a stupid question, but for that I’ve also been afraid to ask. But, I’ve been confused most of the time when people say “x-th century”. Why is the period 1900-1999 called the 20th century and not 19th century?
>In popular perception and practice, centuries are structured by grouping years based on sharing the ‘hundreds’ digit(s). In this model, the n-th century starts with the year that ends in “00” and ends with the year ending in “99”; for example, the years 1900 to 1999, in popular culture, constitute the 20th century. *(Wikipedia)*
What does it mean ‘in popular culture’? Why couldn’t, let’s say, the 19th century constitutes years within 1900-1999 and not the years before?
In: 1
>Why is the period 1900-1999 called the 20th century and not 19th century
Because there’s no “zeroth” century. The years 1-100 were the first century, 101-200 were the second, and it keeps going up like that.
I think what that quote is referring to is the difference between how the calendar strictly groups years and how most people in daily life group years. For example, according to the Gregorian calendar (the main one that we use in daily life), centuries start with a “01” and end on a “00”. For example, the 20th century started on January 1st, 1901, and ended on December 31st, 2000. This is slightly different than how people usually group years into centuries, where, for example, most people think of the year 2000 as being the first year of the 21st century and the 20th century was therefore 1900-2000 as opposed to the calendar which counts it as 1901-2000.
It’s also important to remember the word “century” has 2 meanings in this context and that can cause some confusion. The dictionary definition of a century is just a grouping of 100 years, so any group of 100 years is *a* century. For example, 12/31/1899 to 12/31/1999 is *a* century because it’s 100 years, but it’s not THE 19th century.
Latest Answers