I joined a group this morning so as to ask this question, but I think I may get more responses on here in less time. Let me know your thoughts on this subject.
I have a question about birthdays no one seems to be able to answer satisfactorily. Why is it that when a child is one year old, people claim they are having their FIRST birthday? When in fact it is actually a celebration of their birth a year ago, and should be considered as their SECOND birthday. It seems no one wants to count the actual day of birth as a birthday for some reason, when it is really the ONLY birthday they will ever have. The rest are just the ANNIVERSARY of the first one. I just recently turned 56, so it was my 57th birthday, to me. Why does no one want to count the original true birthday of anyone when considering how many have been had by the individual? Am I the only one to have noticed this short coming of counting all the birthdays of a person? Why is the first and most important one of all always left out of the count? Please enlighten me on this omission in the birthday count.
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- NO
noodengr2Mar 18, 2017I agree with you from a logical standpoint. But doubt we will change the world. The one thing you can do is to try to celebrate it in your birthday suit!
ReactReply - ST
SteveMar 18, 2017The traditional East Asian system does start you on year 1, incrementing the number either on lunar new year (China) or on your birthday (Korea). Date arithmetic does get difficult, though, if you don't start at zero. Western system, if I'm born March 18, 2015 and my sister March 18, 2016, then on March 18, 2017 I'm two and she's one. And indeed I'm twice as old as she is. But Asian system I'm three and she's two - I'n still twice as old as she is, but the numbers don't look that way.
ReactReply - NUnudeyooperMar 20, 2017
If you look at it as a quantification of your age, our tradition makes sense. You have become one year old on what we call your first birthday.
ReactReply - BO
BobMar 20, 2017Who was born on February 29th?
I was not.
Bob
ReactReply - EN
Erik NatamsMar 21, 2017Really a subject for a naturist forum :-)
I have a question that solves a bigger problem. Why is not the entire world using the same metric system? Isn't it time the US and others that use different systems start using the metric system. The rest of the world already (tries to) speak(s) English as the most universal language of the world. It is time the native English speaking people contribute too in making international communication easier.
ReactReply - MA
ManOfWicklowMar 21, 2017[quote]Really a subject for a naturist forum :-) I have a question that solves a bigger problem. Why is not the entire world using the same metric system? Isn't it time the US and others that use different systems start using the metric system.[/quote]The one metric system I would never want to see in the UK is kilometres. When cruising along at 140mph, it would be frightening to look at the clock and see a speed of 225.ReactReply - WA
WayneMar 21, 2017Eric, I'm with you on the metric question, and have been for years. It's time we had a universal language in all things, including measurement. What really confuses me are countries which go part metric, but keep some imperial measurements, such as speed. Very confusing. Like any change, it would take some time to adjust, but you would eventually get used to it, just like you do with any change. In Australia we have gotten rid of all the imperial measurements. We went to decimal currency in the 1960s, and went metric in the 1970s.
ReactReply - WAWayneMar 21, 2017
In actual fact we are celebrating the 'first anniversary of our birthday', but like most things it has been abbreviated, in this case to 'first birthday'. In the same way the '21st day of March' has been abbreviated to the '21st of March' or '21 March'.
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