#11676
12/06/2000 5:09 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The words in Handel's Messiah are taken from the Bible and tell the story of the prophecy, birth, suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. The sheep reference is from Isaiah 53:6 http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Isa/Isa053.html#topHandel's dates were 1685 to 1759, so early to mid eighteenth century rather than late eighteenth century. For more information see http://www.intr.net/bleissa/handel/home.html Bingley
Bingley
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#11677
12/06/2000 5:55 AM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
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In reply to:
? For example Beer (meaning the beverage or shampoo (according to taste -- can't stand the stuff myself, even the smell of it makes me feel ill
This is at last bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh! You are the only person I have ever heard from who shares my physical aversion to beer! Is your reaction specific to beer, or, like mine, to all alcohol?
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#11678
12/06/2000 6:20 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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There were punks at the end of the 19th Century?
Nope. But there were at the end of last century ...
Bingley tells us that I had the wrong party of the right century, however. Sorry, I haven't studied music formally for, um, many years, and I was relying on my lamentably fallible memory. But I do know which century is which!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#11679
12/06/2000 6:24 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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This is at last bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh! You are the only person I have ever heard from who shares my physical aversion to beer!
So do I, after too much of it. See my post on the different terms for chundering ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#11680
12/06/2000 6:26 AM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
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But I do know which century is which!Wow - I knew Wellington was a hip and happening place, but this is amazing! Here in lil' ol' Hastings we is still in the 20th Century, least ways for another 25 days. 
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#11681
12/06/2000 6:30 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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There were punks at the end of the 19th Century?
Nope. But there were at the end of last century ...
'Scuse me--the last century was the nineteenth!!!!!!!
Grumble...almost as bad as Antartica...mumble...grouse...
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#11682
12/06/2000 6:35 AM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
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'Scuse me--the last century was the nineteenth!!!!!!!
Purzackerly! My chronologically corrupted compatriot Capital Kiwi is gettin' ahead of hisself, as how city slickers are wont to do.
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#11683
12/06/2000 7:50 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027 |
--the last century was the nineteenthI agree with this truth that will not last much longer - but the dispute about it will probably last well into the next century 
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#11684
12/06/2000 8:04 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
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You are all nitpicking about something which has to be (and has been) settled by fiat, given the variables involved. I'm glad you aren't as pernickity about language ... what a place this would be if that were the case!
Thinking about cataclysms and their social consequences, has anyone read "The Great Wave" by David Hackett Fischer? (I know, I know, it's an economics book, but it's very readable and explains a lot of what is happening in the world in terms which even a paid-up member of the Cynic Circle like me can wear!)
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#11685
12/06/2000 8:31 AM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
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In reply to:
which has to be (and has been) settled by fiat
Issued (or driven) by whom, pray tell?
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#11686
12/06/2000 9:58 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
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old hand
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by whom, pray tell?The new president of the United States, who else  ?
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#11687
12/06/2000 12:41 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
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settled by fiat, given the variables involved.
Yeah, whose fiat? And, there aren't any "variables", other than time zone differences which will only be of significance in this matter from 12-31-00 to 01-01-01. (Hey! I never realized till just now that the first day of the 21st century will be written like that! Cool!)
There was not a year zero, C.K.
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#11688
12/06/2000 12:47 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>12-31-00 to 01-01-01
Unusually, we will agree on 01-01-01 (but not on 31-12-00)!
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#11689
12/06/2000 1:41 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
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old hand
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There was not a year zero, C.K.[rant] Unfortunately, there was not a year 1 either. Or 2, or.... Dionysus Exiguus (Dennis the Short) literally invented the year 1, around the year 500! And he got it wrong, because the internal evidence from the New Testament (Herod Antipas and the slaying of the children), coupled with political records (death of Herod) show that Jesus, if born in the reign of Herod, must have been born by 4 'BC'. The notion, therefore, that there 'was no year zero' yet there was a year one, is inconsistent. Stephen Jay Gould has written a wonderful book about the millennium (title escapes me right now, and in any case, it might be different in the States), in which he points out that claiming the millennium for 1 January 2001 is no more logical or precise than celebrating it on 1 Jan 2000 (as I did). Pedants, in the 1800/1801 and 1900/1901 New Years', managed to dominate the press and government (having no wish to pander to the needs of hoi polloi) and generally won the argument in favour of year 1 in both cases (though 1900 v. 1901 was a close run thing). I believe that vox populi in the case of 'the millennium' has certainly proven vox dei and the new millennium began on the first of January 2000. Arthur C Clarke to the contrary, I am more than happy with that state of affairs. [/rant] Of course, even this New Year, I hope to party like it's 1999...
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#11690
12/06/2000 1:59 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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You are " a paid-up member of the Cynic Circle"?
They have a branch of the White Dog Gym in NZ?
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#11691
12/06/2000 2:07 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 29
newbie
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newbie
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And was it only our local "custom" to announce any events to happen at the end of the year 1999 as of "New Year's Eve 2000?" I was looking forward then to see what the phrase this year would be and - guess, what - it is "New Year's Eve 2000", too!
I might be making a terrible mistake here: we call NYE a "Sylwester" as Dec 31 is Sylwester's Name Day. Thus, it was actually "Sylwester 2000" last time and again, this year. Do you by chance celebrate "New Year's Eve NN" BEFORE the year NN?
Bound to spend his Sylwester 2000 at work (I know, I already mentioned but still it hurts),
Lukasz
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#11692
12/06/2000 2:11 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
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old hand
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And was it only our local "custom" to announce any events to happen at the end of the year 1999 as of "New Year's Eve 2000?"
I suspect not. New Year's Eve being (teaching grandma to suck eggs) a conventional contraction referring to the 'evening before' any event (like All Hallow's Eve), it seems to fit. I haven't seen it being used for the entire period leading up to the New Year, though, only for the day before.
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#11693
12/06/2000 4:11 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
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now class (to use the invaluable phraseology introduced by Bingley), this whole argument about centuries and millennia is sooo easy to resolve if you reduce it to (and think about) decades. to wit, what are the dates of the decade known as the "nineties"? 1990 to 1999, or 1991 to 2000? now, what do you think the years of the 20th century are (were) 1900 to 1999, or 1901 to 2000? QED, the lack of the year zero (0) or not (or naught) not withstanding.
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#11694
12/06/2000 9:14 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
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In reply to:
Unfortunately, there was not a year 1 either. Or 2, or....
Dionysus Exiguus (Dennis the Short) literally invented the year 1, around the year 500!
The notion, therefore, that there 'was no year zero' yet there was a year one, is inconsistent.
Your rant reminded me of a very amusing two page as for Saudi Air I saw once - a photo of a 747 and the words, "We've been flying since 1345" While I may have the exact year wrong, I was impressed that the ad made no mention of the fact that date given was A.H. rather A.D. - a nice slap in the face for infidel Western pig-dogs and their cultural imperialism.
[counterrant]
On a more serious note, I found tsuwm's "decade" argument more compelling than yours. Any epochal dating system is arbitrary. A.H. is a good example of this. There was no year zero in the A.H. system either, but there was a year one. Taking as inevitable the artifice and arbitrary retrogression implicit in the creation of a starting point for a dating system, said system must still have a "year one." The alternative strikes me as similar to mandating the removal of the last carriage from all trains - if there is no year one, then there can be no year two, etc. I am quite happy to accept vox populi, vox dei, although you are as selective in accepting that as any of us. All of us here have points on which we say "the people have spoken", and other points on which we say "the people are wrong". I don't make a fuss about the millennium, except in jest. I do believe that there was a starting point to the dating system currently in use. It matters not when that start was, it matters only that there was a start. Without an accepted starting point, however arbitrary, the system is worthless. By Gould's argument, I could assert that, like Humpty Dumpty, the millennium means exactly what I want it to mean, nothing more, nothing less. You and he(Gould, that is, not Humpty) have accepted the dating system in use, therefore when you say that it is the year 2000, you are acknowledging that almost 2000 full years have passsed since the point chosen as the start of the epoch.[/counterrant]
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#11695
12/06/2000 9:19 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
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In reply to:
what are the dates of the decade known as the "nineties"? 1990 to 1999, or 1991 to 2000? now, what
do you think the years of the 20th century are (were) 1900 to 1999, or 1901 to 2000?
By this reasoning this should be the 20th century we just entered and 1999 was the last year of the 19th. ¿Qué no?
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#11696
12/06/2000 9:36 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
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>By this reasoning this should be the 20th century we just entered and 1999 was the last year of the 19th.
ah, but the 1st 'century' *was 01 to 99, wasn't it; or, to put it another way, there was no 0th century!
(as opposed to the decade of the "naughties" ;-)
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#11697
12/06/2000 9:38 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094
old hand
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old hand
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Ok, I'm going to solve this once and for all with the (in)famous Pifflic logic that you all know and love.
Let's say that I have a fish. I take this fish and cut it into 1000 pieces. Now, I'm going to give you one piece of this fish every year. Despite the fact that the fish has become intolerably rotten by this point, after I give you the 1000th piece of fish on the 1000th year, I have to begin a new fish.
Even if we start in the middle of the fish, we're saying that I would have given that first piece of fish in the first year. Before that year, the fish was still cycling around aimlessly, serving no purpose.
This year we are finishing the second fish, and next year, we will begin the 3rd fish.
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#11698
12/07/2000 2:19 AM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
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>Poster: Jazzoctopus
Subject: Re: Unweaving the Millennium
Ok, I'm going to solve this once and for all with the (in)famous Pifflic logic that you all know and love.
Let's say that I have a fish. I take this fish and cut it into 1000 pieces. Now, I'm going to give you one piece of this fish every year. Despite the fact that the fish has become intolerably rotten by this point, after I give you the 1000th piece of fish on the 1000th year, I have to begin a new fish.
Even if we start in the middle of the fish, we're saying that I would have given that first piece of fish in the first year. Before that year, the fish was still cycling around aimlessly, serving no purpose.
This year we are finishing the second fish, and next year, we will begin the 3rd fish.
Jazz:
This has really NOTHING to do with your post, with which I agree a hundred percent, but with Shona around, it does give a WHOLE new meaning to fin de siecle. I suspect I have misspelled that, but I don't have at hand my dictionary with foreign phrases in it.
TEd
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#11699
12/07/2000 3:13 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
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... wasn't supposed to be like this. What happened to the horsemen of the apolocalype, the devil's henchmen slaying everyone right left and centre? Fire, brimstone, saltpetre, blood, sickness and all that jazz? I didn't expect to get nibbled to death by ducks!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#11700
12/07/2000 4:37 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
You are the only person I have ever heard from who shares my physical aversion to beer! Is your reaction specific to beer, or, like mine, to all alcohol?
I started off just not liking beer, but with repeated exposure to the smell of it in pubs and bars I've found I react to the smell more and more, feeling queasier each time. I don't particularly like wine, but will drink it to be sociable, usually watering it down as I go to make one glass last the whole meal/evening. I'm quite fond of gin in very moderate quantities and like liqueurs and suchlike, but offer me the choice between a bar of chocolate and a bottle of alcohol in any form and I'll go for the chocolate every time.
Bingley
Bingley
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#11701
12/07/2000 8:06 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>This year we are finishing the second fish, and next year, we will begin the 3rd fish.
So would we need to allocate a bicycle to each fish or each part of a fish. Would the nature of the bicycle change with age. Is there any significance in the colour of the bicycle?
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#11702
12/07/2000 10:46 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
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old hand
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Posts: 1,004 |
In reply to:
Any epochal dating system is arbitrary. A.H. is a good example of this. There was no year zero in the A.H. system either, but there was a year one. Taking as inevitable the artifice and arbitrary retrogression implicit in the creation of a starting point for a dating system, said system must still have a "year one." The alternative strikes me as similar to mandating the removal of the last carriage from all trains - if there is no year one, then there can be no year two, etc. I am quite happy to accept vox populi, vox dei, although you are as selective in accepting that as any of us. All of us here have points on which we say "the people have spoken", and other points on which we say "the people are wrong". I don't make a fuss about the millennium, except in jest. I do believe that there was a starting point to the dating system currently in use. It matters not when that start was, it matters only that there was a start.
Well, here's my
[reiterant]
If any dating system is arbitrary, and we therefore accept that we, post hoc, assign a 'start' date, then it seems obvious to me that there is no problem in decreeing a start with a zero in it. The year zero is simply the year before the year one. It isn't as if the Romans are going to complain that Julius Caesar has suddenly invaded Britian in 42BCE instead of 43BCE, or whatever. Most history books, in any case, cannot be that accurate about years going further back than 100BCE. It's a small enough change to avoid the aesthetic ugliness of ending a century a year after the the numbers themselves have ticked over.[/reiterant]
I suppose we could justify all these arguments here on the grounds that it is about using the language, but I suspect that might be a piece of sophistry...
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#11703
12/07/2000 12:53 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
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veteran
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a WHOLE new meaning to fin de siecle. I suspect I have misspelled that..Yes, TEd - it should be fin de cycle of course. I don't know, I come back from a little swim to find that I no longer serve any purpose, other than to be cut into 1000 pieces to (somehow) help identify what year it is. It's nice to feel wanted.  Oh, did the Gregorian calendar result in a reallocation of fishy bits? Or did that just affect months?
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#11704
12/07/2000 1:36 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
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did the Gregorian calendar result in a reallocation of fishy bits?No, fisk - but I think the French revolutionary system tried to do this - under Bone-apart
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#11705
12/07/2000 1:38 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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shanks sez: "I suppose we could justify all these arguments here on the grounds that it is about using the language, but I suspect that might be a piece of sophistry..."
Personally, I just like arguing about inconsequential nonsense, but then I am a Fool. If y'all hurry up and get it over with types had just waited a year instead of needing your BIG CELEBRATION OF THE MILLENNIUM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE then we could have had the ONE BIG ONE with out its being watered down by fears of the hundred's digit rollover (AKA Y2K) bug.
PS
I celebrate the New Year on the new moon before the first full moon after the vernal equinox. The largest cycle I recognize is the cycle that goes from one occurrence of the new moon and the vernal equinox during the same evening/day period to the next occurrence of the new moon and the vernal equinox during the same evening/day period.
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#11706
12/07/2000 4:11 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 197
member
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member
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I celebrate the New Year on the new moon before the first full moon after the vernal equinox. The largest cycle I recognize is the cycle
that goes from one occurrence of the new moon and the vernal equinox during the same evening/day period to the next occurrence of
the new moon and the vernal equinox during the same evening/day period.
yes, but if, for example, if said new moon fell on dec. 21 at 1.20am, would you celebrate on the 20th or the 21st? we had our wedding on the full moon in july. however our wedding date was not on the date that the calendar called the full moon. the full moon was exact at 1. something that night, you see, so technically the full moon fell on july 16, but if we'd been married that night, it would not have been the same night that the moon was actually full. (and there is no way anyone would have agreed to waiting until 1am to hold a wedding!)
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#11707
12/07/2000 5:57 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Whoa! We'll be hearing about leylines and dancing naked around ancient stone circles soon ... I look forward to it.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#11708
12/07/2000 6:57 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
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dancing naked around ancient stone circles aah. This is why dear xara's not furnished the photographs so long promised
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#11709
12/07/2000 7:01 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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xara asked: yes, but if, for example, if said new moon fell on dec. 21 at 1.20am, would you celebrate on the 20th or the 21st?
For religious purposes I reckon the day to start and end at sunset. The period from sunset to sunrise is the eve and the period from sunrise to sunset is the day. In xara's example the period of celebration (eve/day) would be from sunset the 21st to sunset the 22nd. Note that while the instant of equinox/solstice and the instant of new/full moon are the same throughout the world, the instant of sunset is very local. This means that the point at which the New Year starts sweeping across the Earth would change from year to year and not be fixed by arbitrary Greenwich based lines of longitude. Moreover, it would sweep across the Earth and not jump by time zones.
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#11710
12/07/2000 7:18 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>If y'all hurry up and get it over with types had just waited a year
Celebrating is one of my hobbies. I celebrate the opening of a door, if I get chance - if you are taking the orders - mine's a large one!
I have taken the precaution of hedging my bets (a little like my attitude to religion). I celebrated the dawn of 2000 in the "Old World" and will celebrate the dawn of 2001 in the "New World" and will have wine to match! This will give me an extra five hours in the Year 2000 and I will dedicate these five hours (spread over the whole year, you understand) to fine friends and fine wine. As many of my friends are female this could be construed as wine, women and song but I wouldn't say that. As I said, hedging my bets, I will call the whole period "my Millennium celebrations"!
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#11711
12/07/2000 7:25 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
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"my Millennium celebrations"
if you really want to hedge, just make it your "millennium celebrations"; the next 1000 could start right now.
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#11712
12/07/2000 8:07 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to Shanks: A hit, a very palpable hit! Or, since brevity is the soul of wit, "D'Oh!" Whatever my vices, one thing of which I have never been accused is being a clear thinker. I shall remain in the 20th Century, while cheerfully conceding to those more advanced souls already in the 21st. 
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#11713
12/08/2000 11:33 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 4,757 |
friends are female...Thought that made it whine, women and so long...
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#11714
12/18/2000 11:36 AM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393 |
I think if you check a Latin dictionary (and do check; I can't vouch for my memory), you'll find 'opera' is a feminine singular as well as the more familiar neuter plural. Meaning much the same, IIRC.
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#11715
12/18/2000 12:18 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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'opera' is a feminine singular A fine contralto, to be sure (and welcome to the board NicholasW)
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