End of the decade?

Location: Planet Journalism. 

TEACHER: Now, students, I want you to write the following imposition 10 times each before the end of the week. I am projecting it on the screen for you to take down.

STUDENTS: Groan.

TEACHER: Shh. Look at the screen. This is what I want you to write.

1 AD (or 1 CE): The first year of the Common Era.

2000: The two-thousandth year.

31 December 2000: The last day of the two-thousandth year. At the end of this day, 2000 years are over.

Let us now keep aside those first two thousand years. In other words, keep aside those two hundred decades.

1 January 2001: The first day of the first year of the 201st decade.

1 January 2002: The first day of the second year of the 201st decade.

Similarly,

1 January 2010: The first day of the tenth year of the 201st decade.

Now, there are ten years in a decade.

Which means we have a whole year to go before the 202nd decade begins.

So, from now on, we will stop writing headlines about the greatest this of the decade and the worst that of the decade, and haranguing everyone into celebrating the start of a new decade. When the new decade actually does start, we may be allowed to use such headlines all over again. We may.

 

STUDENTS (among themselves):

New decade begins with unbelievable imposition.

Biggest disagreement of decade.

Students express hope that new decade will be less stringent.

TEACHER (muttering through clenched teeth): I will not give up. I will not give up.

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