ADBCE

Keeping with the new year theme, let's talk context.

We are counting the number of years, referring to some point from where we started counting (and I'll talk more about that starting point tomorrow). Currently, we are the 2007th year of...

Well, that's the thing. Most people on the street would say "AD", as in "Anno Domini" aka "Year of Our Lord". But there is a... I'm not sure if 'movement' is the right word, but I'll use it anyway... a movement to secularise the year counting, which has been going on for a while. But if you don't know you're in 2007 CE, I won't blame you.

This has to be one of the more subtle "attacks" on religion, because hardly anyone is aware of it! I know for a long time, I had come across CE here and there, and was able to infer they were talking about years, and moreover, that a CE year seemed the same as an AD year, but never knew that CE stood for "Common Era".

Now, by now, I'm sure you know my position on religion, but this, to me, seems really pointless. A lot of our common terminology stems from some religious or political event that is buried in the past, but for some reason "AD" has been selected for special treatment. It's not like there's some conversion rule, AD = CE! And BC = BCE! (That's "Before Christ" and "Before Common Era").

Doing this is just going to confuse people, and, presuming it ever became noticable, will just become another case of "rally the troops, the evil ones are attacking religion!" (which, maybe, at the heart, really is the point).

But what about the days of week, based on Norse mythology? Or the months of the year, numbered from the latin, but also throwing in Roman mythology and emperors?

Minor evolution does happen to language over time, but I'm not seeing this as a change sweeping over nations, so I hope I will be forgiven for still saying that we are now in "2007 AD".