The truth is a decade was officially counted as 1 to 10 but it has become increasingly popular to count it from 0 to 9. People's impatience has brought it forward a year and now it has become acceptable to the extent that public opinion now favours the new counting system. "As the final hours of the decade tick away, one question remains: are we entering a new decade now in 2020, or later in 2021? That question always seems to come up every time the year on the calendar moves from ending in 9 to ending in 0. That was the case in 1989. In 1999. 2009. And now, in 2019. The answer seems to depend on who you ask. According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, the agency that maintains the country’s master clock, the new millennium began on Jan. 1, 2001. Astronomical data also takes a similar course, beginning in 2001, 2011, and this time around, 2021. But to others, that doesn’t change the fact that as a society we seemingly talk about decades starting with zeros and ending with nines. For instance, the 1990s seemed to last from 1990 until 1999" So, for official timekeeping purposes, we count decades from 1 to 10 but public opinion now favours 0 to 9. [Post edited 1 Jan 2020 12:28]
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