The Problem understanding dates in the English ?

[alexsunny123]

Hello,

For quite some time I've had this little problem while proofreading translations. I don't know if I'm getting it wrong or the translators who I'm proofreading are getting it wrong:

If I have a date, let's say 1870s, Does this mean the decade of the '70s or the year 1870 alone?
Same goes for, let's say the 1900s: Does this mean the decade of the 1900s or the 20th century?

thanks
alexsunny

[hrpatel]

I have also recently started learning English.

But I am confused as to what to continue learning. I want to be the best writer in English. But I don't know how to start. And I also find it difficult to understand English.

I have also written this with the help of Google Translate.

Thank you

[Woods]

If I have a date, let's say 1870s, Does this mean the decade of the '70s or the year 1870 alone?

That means the years between 1870 and 1879

Same goes for, let's say the 1900s: Does this mean the decade of the 1900s or the 20th century?

Here I'm actually not quite sure

[linguoboy]

Same goes for, let's say the 1900s: Does this mean the decade of the 1900s or the 20th century?

Here I'm actually not quite sure

Here it is ambiguous. Generally, the further back you go, the more likely this is to refer to the entire century rather than just the first decade of it. So "the 2000s" almost always means the years from the beginning of 2000 through the end of 2009, but "the 1800s" is almost always the years 1800-1899.

Because of this ambiguity, it's more common to say "the 19th century", "the 20th century", etc., though I know this is confusing for some people because the 20th century is 1901 to 2000, not 2001 to 2100. Some people also use "the aughts" or the "naughts" for the first decade of a century to avoid the confusion of "the 1900s" or "the 2000s". In historical works, they might say "during the first decade of the 20th century", which is clunky but at least it's clear.

If you have specific examples that you don't know how to interpret, post them here and maybe I can help you find some clues. A title like "America In the 1900s and 1910s" is perfectly clear--they can only be taking about two consecutive decades. Other cases might need more context to figure out.

[azhong]

...Some people also use "the aughts" or the "naughts" for the first decade of a century to avoid the confusion of "the 1900s" or "the 2000s".

To make sure, for example, can I say "the naughts in the nineteenth century" to refer to the period from 1800 to 1809?

[azhong]

...Some people also use "the aughts" or the "naughts" for the first decade of a century to avoid the confusion of "the 1900s" or "the 2000s".

To make sure, can I say, for example, "the naught years in the nineteenth century" to refer to the years from 1800 to 1809? And the naughts years in the twenty-first century", the years from 2000 to 2009?

[linguoboy]

...Some people also use "the aughts" or the "naughts" for the first decade of a century to avoid the confusion of "the 1900s" or "the 2000s".

To make sure, can I say, for example, "the naught years in the nineteenth century" to refer to the years from 1800 to 1809? And the naughts years in the twenty-first century", the years from 2000 to 2009?

I've never heard this sort of usage before. It's just "the naughts" with context left to determine which decade is intended. (For most of my life, this unambiguously referred to the first decade of the 20th century but after 2000 some people began using it to refer to that decade as well. Nowadays without further context it most often refers to the first decade of the 21st century.)

Other decades work the same way. If you say "the teens", it could mean the 1910s or the 2010s. Nowadays it's usually the 2010s but previously it was unambiguously the 1910s. If you want to be specific, you'd say "the ninenteen tens" [sic] or "the twenty tens". So, in your examples, you could say "the eighteen hundreds" (which is ambiguous, and would most like be understood as referring to the entire centuries) or "the eighteen aughts" [*] (which is unambiguous but very rare).

[*] [sic]. "The eighteen naughts" exists as a variant, but it's even more rare than "eighteen aughts".