The 2000s Never Ended

For those who like to argue about such things.

My opinion on a Facebook argument about when a decade begins and ends:

Words are for communication, not for theory. If you want most people to understand you, then the decade began in 2000.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/12/america-still-living-2000s/604174/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Amanda Mull
December 27, 2019

Of the many things worth arguing about in America, the number of years that constitute a decade is probably not among them. The word quite literally means “10 years.” But consider historical time, often referred to in decade-based shorthand, and all of a sudden the clear concept of a decade gets blurrier.

Most decades in America have a corresponding social and cultural narrative that’s an uneasy fit in the actual calendar. The ’50s are often stereotyped as an era of postwar domestic prosperity, but the trends cited as proof, such as the growth of the suburbs, reach well into the ’60s. That decade, in turn, cannot tidily hold the massive shifts attributed to it.

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