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In The Chambers Dictionary 12th Edition, it lists both C and c as abbreviations for century: C (preceding numeral, eg C21, twenty-first century) c (following numeral, eg 21c, twenty-first century) It also lists: cen. abbrev: central; century. cent. abbrev: centigrade; central; centum (L), a hundred; century. Why is the ordinal number e.g. 18th ...
I have seen it in a book title and a sentence written in the 18th century. "Stand to It and Give Them Hell": Gettysburg as the Soldiers Experienced it from Cemetery Ridge to Little Round Top, July 2, 1863 (A book title) Therefore my friends, stand to it one and all, refuse this filthy trash. (1724, Jonathan Swift, The Drapier's Letters, Letter I)
Although people do use it mean 1900–1909, it isn't a misuse to use it to mean 1900–1999. Another way to refer to the first decade would be "just after the turn of the century", or "at the turn of the century". I would say 1920s to mean 1920–1929 though. If you do a corpus query (COCA) you'll find that 1900s is almost always preceded by ...
No answer.) But even if we understand what AD means, the convention can create confusion even when Christian scholars are trying to refer to, well, the years around the time of Jesus Christ. Because we know the birth year is off, any date in the first century BCE or CE is automatically a bit offset compared to the reference point that BC/AD uses.
At the moment "the turn of the century" means, roughly, 1995 to 2005 and "the turn of the last century" means, roughly, 1895 to1905 but I was never quite sure what any given person meant by "the turn of the last century" from the 1960s onward. I prefer "the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries" myself. –
The beginning of the century is a period of time which is short compared to the century but rather long otherwise; Some people may use this phrase to mean the first decade or even longer. I might say "At the beginning of the 20th Century women generally couldn't vote but by the end of World War II many nations had granted them this right".
John Smith will stand down as CEO until the court case is over. Jim Jones has decided to stand down as team captain because of his poor form. And it can also be used transitively: BHP-Billiton may stand down 800 workers at the mine until export prices improve. And as a hyphenated noun term: The stand-down at BHP-Billiton will start in the new year.
"Let's blow this pop/popcorn/Popsicle stand" is a relatively recent updating of an old slang expression from the turn of the twentieth century that blew "the bunch" or "the joint" instead of a stand. Both Google Books (which finds a first match from 1969) and J.E. Lighter (with a match from 1974) identify "Let's blow this pop stand" as the ...
I have several quotes of late-19th-century speech (by British men) which use the abbreviation "d-d" for a word. I'm not sure what it means, but from the context I assume this is profanity of some s...
We can watch it as it grows, and be glad when it learns to laugh, and sit on the floor, and to tumble over on its back, and put its big toe in its mouth, and to stand alone, and to walk, and to climb up on the table, and to cut holes with the scissors in its mother's dresses."