Shouldn't we say "a thousand light-years away/ago?"
| Steve Edwards' website |
| |
| |
| |
Shouldn't we say "a thousand light-years away/ago?"
I bemoan the loss of the hyphen to connect words that form one phrase. The cliché "a one-horse town" scans properly, whereas "a one horse town" asks you to backtrack.
I like "AD" and "BC" in the dating of historical events — even though I don't believe in that religion — because the usage of these notations is customary.
The use of "BP," which abbreviates "before present," or "BCE" ("before common era,") for examples, do allow respect for beliefs adjacent to Christianity — but are not universally recognizable.
• AD (or A.D.) stands for "anno domini," or "the year of the birth of Jesus."
• BC (or B.C.) stands for "before Christ"
I advocate the dating of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth by using this system of notation, nor do I comment on the existence of Jesus at all, and certainly not on his divinity, by using such a system. -->
I do not like to use "Nth century" to discuss the 100 years that is actually denominated by one digit lower. When I read "blah blah happened in the 8th century AD," I have to "translate" the figure. Let's see, that means "the 700's."
I'd rather write "the 700's," even though that may seem philistine to the classicist.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote: "Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college." I disagree; I think that the semicolon is quite useful.
| |