Editing 2249: I Love the 20s
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White Hat, however, raises a pedantic objection to Ponytail's celebration: he believes that the new decade does not "officially" start until 2021. | White Hat, however, raises a pedantic objection to Ponytail's celebration: he believes that the new decade does not "officially" start until 2021. | ||
| β | Ponytail corrects him on this, but he refuses to accept the correction until Megan cites an unlikely source: the fact that the {{w|VH1}} television show {{w|I Love the '90s (American TV series)|''I Love the '90s''}} categorized MC Hammer's 1990 single "{{w|U Can't Touch This}}" as a 90s song, which supports Ponytail's definition of a decade. The joke is that a pop culture documentary is not an authoritative source for definitions of time standards,{{Citation needed}} yet everyone is willing to immediately accept its authority on such matters anyway. Demonstrating the common usage of language is a valid argument, but the degree to which the authority of a single cable channel resolves the argument is unexpected. | + | Ponytail corrects him on this, but he refuses to accept the correction until Megan cites an unlikely source: the fact that the {{w|VH1}} television show |
| + | {{w|I Love the '90s (American TV series)|''I Love the '90s''}} categorized MC Hammer's 1990 single "{{w|U Can't Touch This}}" as a 90s song, which supports Ponytail's definition of a decade. The joke is that a pop culture documentary is not an authoritative source for definitions of time standards,{{Citation needed}} yet everyone is willing to immediately accept its authority on such matters anyway. Demonstrating the common usage of language is a valid argument, but the degree to which the authority of a single cable channel resolves the argument is unexpected. | ||
The disagreement over the definition of when decades start is due to the fact that there is more than one way to count decades. You could do it in one of the following two ways: | The disagreement over the definition of when decades start is due to the fact that there is more than one way to count decades. You could do it in one of the following two ways: | ||
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White Hat's definition is an "ordinal" method since it functions by counting the number of ten-year spans ''since the first one'', which is defined to have begun in the year 1. However, Ponytail's definition is the "cardinal" method, which simply groups years by their common most significant digits. For example, when we say "the 1980s", we mean "the span of ten years that all began with the digits 1-9-8". | White Hat's definition is an "ordinal" method since it functions by counting the number of ten-year spans ''since the first one'', which is defined to have begun in the year 1. However, Ponytail's definition is the "cardinal" method, which simply groups years by their common most significant digits. For example, when we say "the 1980s", we mean "the span of ten years that all began with the digits 1-9-8". | ||
| β | Neither definition is | + | Neither definition is wrong, however, Ponytail's definition is the more common one, and she notes that this is not how decades are typically determined (the show isn't called "I Love the 200th Decade"), and the fact that we count centuries in an ordinal way does not mean that we should do the same with decades. |
White Hat's objection (probably deliberately) recalls an issue that was frequently discussed around the year 2000. Because we ''do'' count centuries ordinally (eg. "1st century", "20th century", etc.), and the first century began on the year 1, the 21st century did not technically start until 2001. Much of the world, not understanding this (or not caring), celebrated the dawning of the year 2000 as the start of both a new century and a new millennium, ignoring those who point out the change wouldn't happen for another year. (Though it should be noted unlike decades this is a genuine mistake rather than two slightly different definitions.) | White Hat's objection (probably deliberately) recalls an issue that was frequently discussed around the year 2000. Because we ''do'' count centuries ordinally (eg. "1st century", "20th century", etc.), and the first century began on the year 1, the 21st century did not technically start until 2001. Much of the world, not understanding this (or not caring), celebrated the dawning of the year 2000 as the start of both a new century and a new millennium, ignoring those who point out the change wouldn't happen for another year. (Though it should be noted unlike decades this is a genuine mistake rather than two slightly different definitions.) | ||
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Megan's exclamation "Stop!" is similar to the line famously used by MC Hammer in "U Can't Touch This" ("Stop! Hammer time."). | Megan's exclamation "Stop!" is similar to the line famously used by MC Hammer in "U Can't Touch This" ("Stop! Hammer time."). | ||
| β | Continuing the dubious "proof" offered by Megan, the title text goes on to use the {{w|Billboard (magazine)|Billboard}} [https://www.billboard.com/charts/greatest-billboards-top-songs-80s Best of the 80s] chart as proof that the 1980s started in 1980, as their chart includes {{w|Blondie (band)|Blondie's}} "{{w|Call Me (Blondie song)|Call Me}}", which was released in 1980. The title text ends with {{w|Q.E.D.|QED}} ("quod erat demonstrandum"), which means "which was [necessary] to be shown", and is traditionally used at the end of a mathematical proof | + | Continuing the dubious "proof" offered by Megan, the title text goes on to use the {{w|Billboard (magazine)|Billboard}} [https://www.billboard.com/charts/greatest-billboards-top-songs-80s Best of the 80s] chart as proof that the 1980s started in 1980, as their chart includes {{w|Blondie (band)|Blondie's}} "{{w|Call Me (Blondie song)|Call Me}}", which was released in 1980. The title text ends with {{w|Q.E.D.|QED}} ("quod erat demonstrandum"), which means "which was [necessary] to be shown", and is traditionally used at the end of a mathematical proof as if this second landmark piece of evidence proves Megan's point as conclusively as a mathematical proof. |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
