"BC or BCE ?" Topic

Which do you use?

I'm not sure why we even have AD/CE. You could just say the number and assume AD/CE if there's no B after it.

BC

BC

BC

BC.

I live in the Western World.

I HATE the use of BCE. You don't see other civilisations changing the cornerstones of their past..

BC

BCE/CE. We started to use it in University back in the late 1980's. and I've used it since.

BCE/CE.

Using BCE cites some kind of "common era", which no one seems to be able to explain outside of a religious context. So you might as well revert to using BC as it is in the original accepted religious context anyway.

I agree with troopwo. Since the dating of the Common Era is based on the estimated year of the birth of Jesus Christ it amounts to essentially the same thing. But I suppose if gives those atheist and agnostic scholars some sense of peace so perhaps it isn't completely a wasted idea.

BCE/CE.

I was brought up with the BC/AD thing. However, I have never understood why the pre year-0 time is defined using an English notation and a post year-0 time is defined using a Latin notation. Both of which are completely irrelevant to the reason the original year 0 was chosen.

The modern notation takes out any need to justify why year 0 was picked to start a dating system from, and has much more relevance to a global audience.

AD/BC

BC

BC/AD. I can do a rant on the subject if anyone cares.

Brutus, nothing gives those scholars peace. You get about six months before the next demand.

BCE is WOKE! We're allowed to be annoyed by that now. I'm surprised that WIGE hasn't got around to purging that and CE yet. But they will.

Does not matter but .I grew up with BC

BC and AD

"The modern notation takes out any need to justify why year 0 was picked to start a dating system from"

I don't need to justify it to anyone, so why should I care?

"it has much more relevance to a global audience"

lingua franca is currently English, hence Western

BC

Oh not again.

I'm with GurKhan

AC/DC

BCE/CE

Just to add that technically there is no year 0. In fact, zero hadn't been invented yet and there is no reason to enumerate a non year. It is 1 BC and then 1 AD. That is why the millennial is 2001 and not 2000.

100% will never change, AD/BC.
The new way is just stupid and unnecessary.

BC/AD. Anything else is pretentious twaddle.

BCE/CE

BC/AD

"The modern notation takes out any need to justify why year 0 was picked to start a dating system from,"

Because when it was adopted the common European way of noting years was 'year x of the reign King y' Hence year of our Lord 2025. At least that's what I've always assumed.

BC/AD

I'm not common.

AD/BC.

BC just because it doesn't make sense to keep changing names, I find myself looking up where somewhere is only to find I knew where it was but didn't know the place had been renamed.

AD/BC, partly out of habit, partly out of considered reasons I don't need to get into here.

Posts like John the OFM's makes me half tempted to switch, though.

Well, offline I mostly use f.Kr. and e.Kr. (for "before/after Christ's (birth)"), on account living in a non-anglophone country.

BC

BC/AD because evilgong beat me to it.

Parzifal gets my +1

I keep using BC/AD because the change to BCE/CE is pointless, confusing, and obfuscatory.

I'm all in if someone wants to restart with a new first year that gets rid of negative dates – like, start with the invention of agriculture, or the earliest written document, or the date of the oldest known ruin, or anything else that marks a reasonable start date for human history. Counting backwards for most of it is ridiculous.

BC/AD because it pisses of all the right people.

BCE has been around for decades.

But I'm even older than that, so use BC/AD. I also measure temperature in Centigrade, not this mysterious 'Celcius', although I was brought up with Fahrenheit.

"BCE has been around for decades."

Centuries, actually – link

"But I'm even older than that,"

You probably aren't!

Me thinks that article doth protest too much.

Also, why do we need AD or CE at all?

Just have a number mean a year, and just use B if it's BC/BCE

Caesar was dictator in 45-B.
Nero was Emperor in 55.

Or put BC dates with a negative in front.

Caesar died in -44.

"You probably aren't"

Probably not, but I feel like I am.

That article was really interesting. Having only come across CE at University, I assumed it was a more modern thing.

I tried to stir up enthusiasm for reviving the French Revolutionary Calendar, but no luck. As long as we pretend they are just letters without meaning I am just as good with BCE/CE as I was with BC/AD. We have to call them something. It is when meaning is assigned to the letters or people claim an elevated status by using one v. the other that I get bothered.

BCE/CE.

BC/AD.

I think it would be a bit naïve to suppose that political correctness began in the late 20th century. The atheistic impulse to remove the vestiges of religion from the public square goes back a long way. The notion of changing BC/AD to BCE/CE hardly seems benign to me. The article linked by GurKhan seems to me to be not well thought out. For one, just because we can't precisely date the birth of Jesus doesn't in anyway undermine the notion of BC/AD. It is a best guess. Also, there can't be a 0 year since the day after January 1 of the first year of AD has to be in an existing year. You can't have January 1, 0000. That is just simply nonsensical.

@Marcus Brutus

Astronomers do use a year zero:
link

I'm old school BC +Ad

BC/AD

I assume that the other connotation was implemented so as not to "offend" non-Christians. But then by changing it, are we offending Christians?

I'm going to dive into my foxhole (is that term offensive to foxes?) now and keep my head down to avoid the incoming shrapnel .

Any love for AC/DC ?