It’s the Roaring 20s! (No, it’s not)

I love calling what comes next the Roaring 20s, so much smarter than the little-used Teens we are leaving behind. Kind of a stinky decade, on balance, but it made a minority of Americans very happy. I am talking about President Donald Trump’s followers, and that happy minority doesn’t include many minorities, but that’s how it goes sometime.

Here are the facts: 2020 does not start the new decade, no matter how many of you believe it does. I will prove it to you in a minute.

We made the same mistake as 2000 arrived, opening the door to the new millennium. (Hey! Remember the Y2K panic, when so many people felt that computers programmed by dorks who forgot to account for the change that would follow when the date integers switched from starting with 19 to 20?) It was a big fakeout. Planes did not fall out of the sky, the Internet did not collapse, newspapers published. It was a flop. Like global warming. (Just kidding. The earth actually is getting warmer.)

I promised I would prove it to you. Listen: You have a baby tomorrow. She arrives tomorrow, but she is not 1 until a year passes. In the same way, the first year of earth’s existence wasn’t marked as Year 1 until the end of the year. So we’re really always running a year behind.
Get it? No?

I can’t explain it any better (and I’m not sure I have convinced myself.) I will let the Inquirer’s Tony Wood try right here.

Better now?

This is something you can argue about as you wait for the big ball to drop in Times Square (or London if you want an early night.)

And while you are doing that, I will wish you a very Happy New Year. Or Decade. Your choice.