2010 - first or last?

[DrFaroohk]

When you think of 2010...do you think of it as the last year of a decade, or the first of a new decade?

[Jack]

The first year CE was the year 1. The last, tenth, year of the first decade was year 10. Extrapolating from this, 2001, not 2000, was the first year of this millennium, and 2011 is the first year of the next decade. :P

[blas87]

I guess it depends....those VH1 shows "I love the 90s" and whatnot always end with 1979, 89, 99, 2009...

[HYHYBT]

It's both, of course.

"The Twentieth Century" ran from 1901-2000, but "The 1900's" ran from 1900-1999. "The Two Hundredth Decade" would, similarly, have been 1991-2000, but NOBODY EVER uses that, and the parallel "The 1990's" was 1990-99.

The bigger problem is that the common nomenclature for decades only works for eight out of ten, and we're now in the middle of the other two.

[Jack]

Well, there's a difference there.

When you refer to "The nth century" you're referring to a particular century in a group of centuries measured as begins from the first year, such that any century necessarily begins with xx01 and ends with yy00.

When you refer to "The n-hundreds" you're referring to the group of years beginning with n which is xx00 to xx99.

They're really just different answers to different questions, so in our case it seems to depend on how you understand the OP's question.

[HYHYBT]

...which is the point I was trying to make

[Jack]

Oh sorry, I somehow misidentified your point DX

[telecom_goddess]

Godamnit now I'm confused

I hate numbers.