Terry Mitchell

Is New Year's Day Now Celebrated on December 31?



Posted: Thursday, March 05, 2009

by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com

The way government officials and members of the media have been discussing the analog-to-digital TV transition in this country, one would think that New Year's Day is now celebrated on December 31. Let me explain.

Remember all the talk and public service announcements regarding the originally planned transition date? Nearly everyone claimed that the original date was supposed to be February 17. Even the official government legislation mandating the transition referred to February 17 as the day it would go into effect.

But that just wasn't the case. The real original transition date was February 18. Note that the transition was scheduled to happen at midnight, a minute after 11:59 pm on February 17. That's February 18! If that's not the case, then why do we say January 1, the first day of the New Year, begins a minute after 11:59 pm on December 31? Why the inconsistency?

Now, of course, the transition date has been moved to June 13. However, everyone is saying it will be June 12. But again, it is not scheduled to happen until midnight, a minute after 11:59 pm on June 12.

Now, if you still want to insist that the original digital transition date really was February 17 and new one really is June 12, you should make plans to celebrate New Year's 2010 on December 31, 2009 and have your New Year's Eve party the night before that.
 
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports. He is also the owner of a new privacy-enhanced search engine - http://www.SearchMost.com.

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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)
» left by Dianne Lehmann
 3 years 80 days ago.
137 fans.
Hi Terry.
 
That whole midnight, today, tomorrow thing has always bothered me. Just precisely when does today become tomorrow? The other thing that bothers me is when someone says they are going to do something very specific at a very specific time and then not follow through. Goes for Government too, in my book.
 
Thanks for sharing your thoughts,
Dianne
» left by Terry Mitchell 3 years 80 days ago.
93 fans.
Dianne, thanks for commenting. I never have liked that whole "midnight being the start of the next day" thing. In biblical times, the day started at 6 a.m.  So, when the King James Bible refers to "the sixth hour of the day," it is talking about noon. I like that better. It's less confusing. I don't know why it was ever changed. And don't get me started on Daylight Saving Time ...
» left by Jean Horst
 3 years 79 days ago.
178 fans.
Along those lines, when did the new century actually begin?
» left by Terry Mitchell 3 years 79 days ago.
93 fans.
Jean, it actually began on January 1, 2001, but almost everyone celebrated it a year earlier. Think about it, though. The first A.D. year was year one, not year zero. Therefore, the first century consisted of years 1-100, the second was years 101-200, and so on.
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