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Age +1

Today I stept into my 28th year, why call my age 27?
  (+3, -2)
(+3, -2)
  [vote for,
against]

It's like I'm denying that I'm 27 for a year, and than suddenly becoming 27 at the last day of my 27th year of living... Got it?

Age =/= the year you left behind

Age = which year you're living in

Pleez, Aug 20 2001

2012 and all that http://www.levity.c.../finalillusion.html
[lubbit, Aug 20 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

[link]






       Because you have not yet completed your 28th year.
angel, Aug 20 2001
  

       The day you were born is a convenient yet arbitrary yardstick anyway. If you want to count how long you've been alive, you could go back as far as your date of conception.
-alx, Aug 20 2001
  

       -alx: There are some who would argue that you were not actually alive at conception. <dons flameproof suit and stands back to watch>
PotatoStew, Aug 20 2001
  

       [UnaBubba &PotatoStew] Hence the 'could' in my previous annotation...birth is good because it draws a line in the sand, but it'd be hard to argue a good case that you only become alive at that point.
-alx, Aug 20 2001
  

       -alx: I understand, and I personally think the line should be drawn much earlier than most other people would draw it. But UB is right, this is a sensitive subject, and I'm sure there's probably no point in trying to figure it out here.
PotatoStew, Aug 20 2001
  

       Yeah...I hadn't actually thought ahead to the issues which my original annotation would lead to until the responses were posted...was just commenting on the arbitrary nature of all dating...
-alx, Aug 20 2001
  

       Ask a C programmer why it makes perfect sense. a[0] represents the 1st element of array a, a[1] the 2nd, etc.
Or, Mathematically, the simplest way to express your age, which is a real number, as an integer number of years, is to simply truncate it; if you've lived 27.9 years, why not just say you're 27?
Until, that is, you've stept (sic.) into your 29th year, after having lived 28 years.
jabbers, Aug 20 2001
  

       Well as long as we're being arbitrary, why not just pick a date in the future and measure the amount of years 'till that date. Then subtract 3. I choose 21st December 2012, when a mushroom apparantly predicts the world will... ooh, it won't say (see link).
lubbit, Aug 20 2001
  

       The world will Enter A New Age
thumbwax, Aug 20 2001
  

       Not *another* one!
angel, Aug 21 2001
  

       Thnx [Mephista], I will keep your comment in mind this year... So [waugsqueke], my age today is   

       27,007239726027397 >>>> Hurray!
Pleez, Aug 21 2001
  

       Rounding down to the nearest integer is purely voluntary. When I think of (or am asked) my own age, I always round to the nearest integer (although these days, I tend to forget precisely how old I am). Rounding to the nearest integer also helps alleviate the "shock" of reaching milestone ages, as I have time to increment my age gradually, around six months away from my birthday.
Lemon, Aug 21 2001
  

       I'm gonna try using this excuse to buy alcohol when I turn 20 next year

--OFF TOPIC-- Last month, at my grandma's 78(?)th birthday dinner, the waiters/waitresses sang the following song:
I don't know but I've been told
Someone here is gettin' old
We all tried not to laugh, but damn it was funny.
AfroAssault, Aug 22 2001
  

       If it included womb time we'd celebrate your conception day and not your birth day.
sirrobin, Aug 22 2001
  

       Another problem with celebrating conception: do you go for the sexual act, or the fertilisation, or the implantation of the fetus in the womb? I think it takes several hours till fertilisation, and a couple of days till implantation, but don't quote me if you got a biology exam coming up.
pottedstu, Sep 15 2001
  

       GeorgeTheRobin: Never mind leap years; I was going to say it wasn't true because of leap SECONDS.
pottedstu, Oct 02 2001
  

       Yez, I'm in my 112th season...
Pleez, Oct 16 2001
  

       I'm inclined to agree with Lemon and others. After all, as kids we are very careful to ensure that if we are six-and-3-quarters we correct anyone who mistakenly describes us as six. I have never quite fathomed how or exactly when this perfectly reasonable system of age measurement gets replaced with the once-a-year renumbering. After all, if at some stage in life we regard the overall scale of things as requiring that we recalibrate in that way, should there not be some later threshold beyond which we recalibrate in decades rather than years? Some people, I realise, do come close to doing so in preferring to be categorised within parts-of-decades, eg "I'm in my early fifties" rather than saying 53.
Mygo, Oct 16 2001
  

       Mygo, I suspect the threshold is - for those of us who grew up on Logan's Run, anyway - thirty. That's when you have enough decades to count as wholes and any extra years are just to be quietly brushed under the carpet. It's when you're officially 'old' as one of my dear friends keeps so kindly reminding me, as my own Last Day approaches (Four days and counting).   

       Ah, well. "There is no sanctuary."
Guy Fox, Oct 16 2001
  

       Happy birthday in advance, Guy.
"Officially old"? Hmm, there are people in their 60's and early 70's these days who sat they're middle aged rather than old. On that basis, 30 is positively adolescent. It's still an uncomfortable milestone to reach, mind.
(Lemon - in his thirties, but refuses to round to the nearest decade).
Lemon, Oct 17 2001
  

       When a female contestant on the game show he was hosting told Groucho Marx that she was "approaching thirty", he asked "From which direction?"
(angel - approaching forty, but see profile for disclaimer.)
angel, Oct 17 2001
  

       To sort of summarize the above discussion;   

       0-4 age = not important to you or known   

       5-16 age = years + months   

       17-26 age = years   

       27-65 age = decades   

       65- ? age = not important to you or known
Pleez, Oct 17 2001, last modified Oct 18 2001
  

       "How old are you"
"I was born in 19xx, how old does that make me, by your reckoning?"
bristolz, Oct 18 2001
  

       'I'm pushing 40.' "You're not pushing it, you're dragging it behind you on a trailer hitch."   

       Guy Fox: you can get away. They haven't caught me yet.   

       It's never too early for a second childhood; I went straight from my first into it.   

       <Yes, it's an old joke. Deal.>
StarChaser, Oct 18 2001
  

       I'm officially 'on the run' as of Saturday. If the sandmen can track me down through the haze of hash-smoke in Amsterdam, I'll be well impressed.
Guy Fox, Oct 18 2001
  

       [blissmiss] Hi Mom! Gotcha ;o)   

       [Guy Fox] You know how to tribute to the smokey image of Amsterdam... BTW, coffeeshop's 'De Rokery' and 'Paradox' are my neighbourhood favourites.
Pleez, Oct 20 2001
  

       Hey, Pleez. Just back from your neck of the woods. Congratulations on having such an excellent city. Thoroughly nice people, the Amsterdamers, putting up with us wasted tourists; a great time was had by all. (Missed your post on the 20th so I didn't get a chance to check out De Rokery or Paradox, but I certainly found some ambient places to get mellow - I'm sure I'll be going back soon, anyway).
Guy Fox, Oct 23 2001
  

       I have a korean friend who says that her grandmother used to measure age from approximate date of conception.   

       I'd agree, but who wants to give pro-lifers that kind of ammuntion.
sleepyBrett, Jun 04 2002
  

       go back to sleep, Brett. firstly, this thread is pretty old to be adding new comments. secondly, the korean grandmother thing is interesting enough to warrant reopening an old thread (imho) but the second comment was unnecessarily inflammatory (at least that's how it came across to me, maybe you didn't intend it). follow the old folks' lead and have that argument somewhere else.
china, Jun 04 2002
  

       I like Pataoes!
CV, Apr 01 2003
  

       //I have a korean friend who says that her grandmother used to measure age from approximate date of conception.//   

       Yes, the Koreans generally add one to their age. Even the women! ... I wonder how that affects the age of consent?
FloridaManatee, Apr 01 2003
  
      
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