ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Is 2020 really the start of a new decade?
It may seem like a straight forward answer, but if you dive into the question a little more, it’s easy to see why there’s debate around it.
In a recent poll, 64 percent of people surveyed say the new decade begins in 2020 and ends in 2029.
17 percent say it will start in 2021 and end in 2030.
The remaining 19 percent just aren’t sure.
When it comes to voices of authority, many side with the minority opinion.
The managing editor of the Farmer’s Almanac recently told National Public Radio that the new decade won’t start until Jan. 1, 2021. And the reasoning is pretty straight forward. When our current calendar era began more than 2000 years ago, it began with year one -- not year zero.
Many other time experts agree with this stance, but they also say the whole thing basically comes down to semantics. After all, a decade is just a span of 10 years, so it doesn't matter if you count from year zero to year nine or years one to 10.
Whether you're on "team zero" or "team one," one thing is for sure -- when the clock strikes midnight, we'll officially leave the teens and enter the 20's.
The government hasn't taken an official stance on the decade debate, but it did on the new millennium. Back in 1999, the U.S. Naval Observatory, which runs the nation's master clock, said the new millennium would begin on Jan. 1, 2001, not January 1, 2000.
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