Date terminology

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Deleted member 478

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I've just bought a book called "The Barefoot Navigator" and in the Conventions and Credits sections it says:
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DATES: Dates are quoted using the new convention. "AD" is now "CE" (Common Era) and "BC" is now "BCE" (Before Common Era).

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Two things:
- who the fark decided that and
- when did this all change?
 
The term "Common Era" has early antecedents. A 1716 book by English Bishop John Prideaux says, "The vulgar era, by which we now compute the years from his incarnation." In 1835, in his book Living Oracles, Alexander Campbell, wrote "The vulgar Era, or Anno Domini; the fourth year of Jesus Christ, the first of which was but eight days." In its article on General Chronology, the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia uses the sentence: "Foremost among these (dating eras) is that which is now adopted by all civilized peoples and known as the Christian, Vulgar or Common Era, in the twentieth century of which we are now living".[10]

"Vulgar" comes from the Latin word vulgāris (from vulgus, the common people), meant "of or belonging to the common people, everyday". By the late 1800s, however, vulgar had come to mean "crudely indecent" and the Latin word was replaced by its English equivalent, "common".

Some Jewish academics had already been using the BCE abbreviation by the mid 1800's, such as in 1856, when Rabbi and historian, Morris Jacob Raphall used the abbreviation in his book Post-Biblical History of The Jews.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era
 
it happened a while back. I heard a teacher use the phrase "Common Era", and at about the same time Peking changd its name to Beijing, just like that. Then just recently "Mumbai" was invented instead of Bombay too. In the UK, the bbc decides most of these things.
 
Oi Vay I didn't know that..... But it does seem rather arrogant to count years by a system based on some guy called Greg who's idea of when a certain prophet, not recognised by the majority of people on the planet, lived and died don't it? Especially as the dates calculated by him seem to be out by a fair bit anyway...
/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
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Don't know who or when but another example of political correctness for the sake of it. Like GMT becoming UT. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

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GMT is not the same as UT. It handles leap seconds differently.
 
Not PC so much as abandoning a bit of insularity. I've heard people who haven't seen the inside of a church for 20 years ranting on about giving up BC and AD, as if it matters to anyone except a Christian fundamentalist nut. BCE/CE has been used in theology and education for a couple of decades now - how come so many of the backwoodsmen seem to have missed it?
 
I must be a backwoodsman then.

By the way, what's a backwoodsman?
 
[ QUOTE ]
it happened a while back. I heard a teacher use the phrase "Common Era", and at about the same time Peking changd its name to Beijing, just like that. Then just recently "Mumbai" was invented instead of Bombay too. In the UK, the bbc decides most of these things.

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It was Mumbai before the Brit Raj named it Bombay, so not really "invented."
 
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It was Mumbai before the Brit Raj named it Bombay, so not really "invented."

[/ QUOTE ] No offence meant, pelicanpete, but you've been tcm'd.
 
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It was Mumbai before the Brit Raj named it Bombay, so not really "invented."

[/ QUOTE ] No offence meant, pelicanpete, but you've been tcm'd.

[/ QUOTE ]

No offence taken...but I'd prefer to think he's been 'Pelican Peted' /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
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