Do You Know What Year This Is?

Interest in Y2K and concern over its consequences are growing. Y2K is the abbreviation for the Year 2000 Problem, also known as the Millennium Bug. "Y" stands for "Year" of course. "K" stands for "thousand," as in kilograms (1,000 grams), kilometers (1,000 meters), etc. Although Y2K refers to possible computer disasters that may occur on January 1, 2000, the third millennium does not actually start on that date.

We date events not by reference to our government, but by a system that transcends the rise and fall of particular political structures or leaders. We date by the A.D. system. Numerous young people have told me that A.D. stands for "After Death." Incredible! What are they being taught in the public schools? Shouldn't school teachers be required to own a dictionary and to know the meaning of common expressions? A.D. is actually the abbreviation for Anno Domini, a Latin expression meaning "in the year of the Lord." For example, the expression "1998" means "the one thousand nine hundred ninety-eighth year of the Lord," with reference to the date of the coming of Christ the Lord as a baby in Bethlehem.

When the Russian (Scythian) scholar Dionysius Exiguus (or Denis the Little) invented our A.D. system in the early sixth century A.D., he was working in Rome and using Roman numerals for which no zero symbol exists. Hence, the years A.D. began in Year 1, not Year 0. The new millennium, the twenty-first century A.D., should start on January 1, 2001, two thousand years after Year 1, the beginning of A.D. There is a more serious problem, however.

Unfortunately, Dionysius was not only lacking a symbol for zero. As he tracked back from his time in the sixth century to the birth of Christ as the beginning point for his new A.D. system, he made an error of about six or seven years in his placing of Christ's birth in relation to his own time. We do not know how he made this error. Using the A.D. system of Dionysius today, we should place the birth of Christ in 6 or 7 B.C., not in our Year 1 A.D. So what year is this really?

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Sharpen your appreciation for meaningful and accurate expression at Good Composition.
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