Different ways of counting age are weird.

[kareina]

 Today is the 1st of May, so the birthday of the SCA, which is just starting Anno Societas 60. The SCA started in 1966, and, counting 1 May 1966 to 1 May 1967 as year 1 of the Society, makes the year that starts today year 60.

Which is all well and fine, except that I was also born in 1966, and, given that humans start with a year 0 and don't become a year old till after they have experienced an entire year, plus it isn't December yet, means that I am "only" 58, and I have more than a year and a half before I need to decide what to do to celebrate my 60th birthday. Yet, knowing that the SCA and I started in the same year, and seeing that zero on the end of the SCA year, has me realising that my next zero year is sooner than I think, and a bigger number than I expect it to be...

Comments

[fjorlief]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that although western culture doesn't count the child as one year old until a year has passed, there are other cultures that enumerate human years differently, like starting the child as one when it is born...
Aha... found a reference about what I remembered:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning

[kareina]

Interesting, I remember once hearing my mother tell other adults that in Japan they count a baby's first year as year 1. But I was very little at the time, and don't remember many details from the conversation. Looking at the article, it was stranger than that, with New Years being the day everyone got a year older, and that system went officially out of practice more than 60 years before we lived there.