The "Real" Meaning of millennium

Repeating a sentiment uttered countless times in the waning days of 1999, newspaper reporter Paul Bonner wrote in the Durham (N.C.) Herald-Sun on 1 January 2000 (A8):

The point has been raised often enough, and by now it's moot. All the millennial hoopla is a year too early, since the new millennium doesn't technically begin until 2001. [¶] . . . However, even the most punctilious date watchers apparently went along with the conceit and welcomed the new whatever-it-is.

And some people were not even willing to "go along with the conceit"; for example, someone signing his name as "Alexey" wrote to the American Dialect Society's electronic mailing list (ADS-L) on 3 January 2000:

Merry Y2K.

I suppose it can be proclaimed the year of ignorance.

Whole lotta people think we are now in the third millenium [sic].

Why didn't it start with the 20th century then, if it might have started with the last year of the second one?

I congratulate you and rejoice myself being still in the 20th century, home sweet home.

Merry fin de ciecle [sic].

As linguists, we of course know that Bonner's nervousness about calling 1 January 2000 the beginning of the new millennium is unnecessary, and Alexey's proclamation of the "ignorance" of "lotta people" is misplaced. Words mean what "lotta people" decide that they mean--and in the case of the temporal referent for the third millennium, the vast majority long ago made the commonsense determination that our new millennium begins with the year 2000, the second millennium having (therefore) begun in the year 1000. For understandable reasons, people wanted a phrase that indicates the psychologically striking fact that we had just entered an era in which, for the first time, the number of the year begins with a "2" rather than a "1."

New millennium naturally fits the bill. It is of absolutely no linguistic consequence that the commonplace usage might cause Alexey et al. to feel obliged to reason that THE FIRST MILLENNIUM began in the year 1 B.C.E.; 'the year in which THE FIRST MILLENNIUM began' is a concept for which no special term at all is necessary (or ever was, since no one who was alive in that era even used the present calendar). Or, if pressed, one could just say that THE FIRST MILLENNIUM was only 999 years long--the consequences are no greater than, say, for defining month as a 'period of time lasting between 28 and 30 days' (rather than the etymologically correct 'period of time between two full moons') or using the term decimate to mean 'kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of' (rather than the etymologically correct 'kill, destroy, or remove 10% of'). Again, words mean what native speakers tell us they mean: it is not a matter of etymology or arithmetical calculation; it is a matter of utilitarian common sense. The THIRD MILLENNIUM began 1 January 2000. THE SECOND MILLENNIUM began (if anyone cares to think about it) 1 January 1000. THE FIRST MILLENNIUM began whenever it began.

In all likelihood, when our descendants gather to celebrate New Year's Day 2100, they will in general speak of entering the new century. And likewise, despite linguistics and common sense, there will doubtless also be a few arithmetically obsessed mavens who will noisily maintain that, well, really, the twenty-second century doesn't begin until 2101.