Common Era (CE), or Anno Domini (AD)?

[Noaming]

If CE actually started at a different time then I would be more likely to use it

[Big Jim P]

I can only imagine what SE stands for.

Satan's Era?

Close enough. Satanic Era. I was born in year 2.

[New Maldorainia]

I am an Orthodox Jew and I always say A.D.

[Menassa]

I am an Orthodox Jew and I always say A.D.

You should say: A.M.

[The Huskar Social Union]

I mainly use AD, probably because i grew up using it more and near everyone i know uses it instead of CE. However i use CE every now and then, started using it sightly more in the last few years.

[Immoren]

I use ADHD.

[Ljvonia]

The GDR set a standard here in Germany, using vuZ and nuZ which basically is Before and After CE. Personally I always liked the old roman "Ab urbe condita", seting the starting point at 753 vuZ.

[The Archregimancy]

Forsher's already summarised my past posts on the subject, but for my own reference:

Alright, so, I figured someone may as well ask this: for the year, do you use BC/AD (Before Christ/Anno Domini), BCE/CE (Before Common Era/Common Era), or something else, and why?

As an atheist, I prefer to use BCE/CE.

As an academic archaeologist who edits the newsletter of one of the largest professional (and wholly non-sectarian) archaeology societies in North America, I prefer BC/AD - as specifically called for in our publication style guide - because that's simply the usual professional form:

B.C. follows dates (2000 B.C.); A.D. precedes dates (A.D. 2000). There is no year 0. Do not use C.E. (current era), B.P. (before present), or B.C.E.; convert these expressions to A.D. and B.C. (See below for use of B.P. in radiometric ages.) Abbreviate circa as ca. (ca. 1650).

In any case, BCE/CE is still using the same culturally biased starting point as BC/AD, so it always strikes me as laughably fatuous to claim it's somehow more neutral terminology.

Maybe we should revert to 2765 AUC?

As far as I'm aware, BCE/ CE is essentially an American, or at best Anglophone concept. B.C./ A.D. and their regional linguistic variations are certainly absolutely dominant on the continent, by which I mean that I've never, in any publication, stumbled over the equivalent of BCE/ CE in non-English materials.

The Archregimancy's previous posts further imply that even within the anglophone world, the BCE/ CE concept isn't exactly an academic one.

Consequently, I'm left with the impression that BCE/ CE is largely an American 'We're really really special and like to do things differently from everyone else' thing, rather like their continued use of imperial measurements - which, too, mirrors the not- (Or less-) use thereof in academia.

So... A concept and notation that basically amounts to a 'We'll do things different, dammit!' by foreign amateurs?

Like hell I'm going to use something like that. I'm using the système international d'unités, not some fucken crazy anglophone measurements, and I'm likewise using B.C./ A.D. (v. Chr./ n. Chr.).

All joking aside (and everyone does realise I was joking in that 25 December / 1 AD post, right?), the earliest roots of the use of 'Common Era' over "Anno Domini" stem from attempts to distinguish between the 'vulgar' civil year and the 'regnal' year of the ruling monarch during the Enlightenment. Regnal years were the most common - though not universal (see Tmutarakhan's post) - dating convention in European law. The UK parliament was still dating its acts by regnal year as recently as 1963; Canada - rather amazingly - apparently still officially dates parliamentary acts by the regnal year of Elizabeth II.

The first use of 'Common Era' in English as a synonym for Vulgar Era - or vulgaris aerae - arrived in the early 18th century. It was typically used interchangeably with 'Christian Era' and 'Vulgar Era'; so it is in origin just an English synonym for 'Christian Era'. Yet another reason to find arguments that it's somehow more neutral than 'AD' entirely fatuous. Many European Jewish scholars were using both VE and CE by the mid 19th-century, so as to avoid the implications of 'Our Lord' in Anno Domini. Muslims have never really been as bothered given the role of Jesus as the penultimate prophet of Allah; I think only Saudi Arabia exclusively sticks to AH.

In modern academic usage, it's far more common in the United States, though it's become more common in the UK over the last decade. The Smithsonian's probably the most important museum to use it, though even they don't insist on it within their individual components. As noted in an earlier post, the archaeology professional society that I edit the Newsletter for still insists on BC/AD, and I can assure you it's an entirely non-religious organisation with a significant atheist/agnostic/Jewish/other non-Christian membership.

It would be wrong to think that use of BC/AD v. BCE/CE is a purely Christian/atheist or academic/non-academic issue anyway. The Jehovah's Witnesses have been using BCE/CE since the 1960s, and touchy-feely US Episcopalians are quite fond of it. And I think we've amply established that there are plenty of perfectly respectable academics who continue to use BC/AD like they've always done.

Other than recent English usage, communist regimes in eastern and central Europe often used non-Christian alternatives to their equivalent of BC/AD, so it's not exclusively an American phenomenon.

I would only add that since posting the above in 2012, I'm now additionally the joint editor of a respected archaeology journal based in the UK. As with the US-based newsletter I continue to edit, it has no religious affiliation of any type whatsoever.

It also uses BC/AD.

I checked the recently revised submission style guide in some detail before making this post, and unlike my North American professional society, it doesn't even feel a need to directly address the issue - it's not considered something worth noting, and preference is made clear by the constant use of the 'AD' convention in the style guide.

I don't want to give the mistaken impression that BC/AD is universal in archaeological circles, because it isn't; much depends on period specialisation and geographical base. But it's certainly the standard usage in the academic circles I move in, regardless of religion or lack thereof.

And it's worth stressing that Antiquity, probably the single most important English-language archaeology journal (which I have previously published in) uses BC/AD....

Dates
Antiquity uses BC/AD not BCE/CE.

AD comes before the date, BC after, except when using a century name, e.g.

3500 BC
AD 1066
tenth century AD
Dates in text should be given as (number) (month) (year), no ordinals: e.g. 30 January 2010

Dates should be hyphenated when used adjectivally, e.g. nineteenth-century object, but not in noun phrases, e.g. the early nineteenth century.

http://antiquity.ac.uk/contribute/contribute.html

[Bourgeoizie]

In the years of our lord of course, A.D.

[Divair]

Usually AD because more people understand it, but CE if I'm typing an essay or something along those lines.

[Herador]

AD commonly and CE when situation demands, by that I mean the one history class where we were forced to use it.

[Slembana]

I prefer AD.

[Risottia]

I have heard both terms for the year used, and I wanted to see how NS felt about the topic. I use AD, it's what I've always heard and CE doesn't sound as good.
So why the change from AD to CE? AD, or Anno Domini, means "in the years of the Lord", and the change to CE is for political correctness. The reference point when CE begins is still the birth of Christ. So which do you use, and why?

EV (ERA VVLGARIS).

Personally, I prefer to stick to the AVC era (AB VRBE CONDITA) with the Julian calendar.

DATVM A.D.III KAL.APR., ANNO MMDCCLXVI AVC ... bitches.

[Dreadful Sagittarius]

Despite my own personal views when it comes to religion, I still use 'AD', mostly because that's the societal standard. I've known very few people in the UK use CE at all. In fact, I don't think I've heard it even once.

[Inertialism]

i use CE when i have to; but i often use either '2013' or '2013 bce'

[Dreadful Sagittarius]

i use CE when i have to; but i often use either '2013' or '2013 bce'

Er...BCE was about 2013 years ago. It's either BC or BCE, then AD or CE.

[Espartius]

I have always used AD. It is more common in and around my place.

[The Blaatschapen]

Right.

BC/AD is arbitrary, inaccurate and meaningless.

This is why BCE/CE is better.

CE/BCE is offensive, annoying, and sounds stupid.

AD/BC FTW!

How is it offensive?

[Farnhamia]

I have heard both terms for the year used, and I wanted to see how NS felt about the topic. I use AD, it's what I've always heard and CE doesn't sound as good.
So why the change from AD to CE? AD, or Anno Domini, means "in the years of the Lord", and the change to CE is for political correctness. The reference point when CE begins is still the birth of Christ. So which do you use, and why?

EV (ERA VVLGARIS).

Personally, I prefer to stick to the AVC era (AB VRBE CONDITA) with the Julian calendar.

DATVM A.D. III V KAL. APR., ANNO MMDCCLXVI AVC ... bitches.

Fixed.

[Bottle]

The reference point when CE begins is still the birth of Christ.

Given that we cannot conclusively establish that Christ was born, I think this is rather a stretch. It's also weird to me to refer to any year as a "year of our lord" since, well, there's no such animal. He's not OUR lord, after all. He's yours, maybe, or at least some of you, but for the majority of the population of the planet he's not much of anything.

We know that Christians exist and have dominated the Western world for most of this time period, so I don't see any problem with using "their" calendar to chart the Common Era.

[Farnhamia]

The reference point when CE begins is still the birth of Christ.

Given that we cannot conclusively establish that Christ was born, I think this is rather a stretch. It's also weird to me to refer to any year as a "year of our lord" since, well, there's no such animal. He's not OUR lord, after all. He's yours, maybe, or at least some of you, but for the majority of the population of the planet he's not much of anything.

We know that Christians exist and have dominated the Western world for most of this time period, so I don't see any problem with using "their" calendar to chart the Common Era.

Right. The point when CE begins is the incorrect date of Christ's birth as set by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century. His calculations were out by five or six years, I believe.

[Bottle]

Given that we cannot conclusively establish that Christ was born, I think this is rather a stretch. It's also weird to me to refer to any year as a "year of our lord" since, well, there's no such animal. He's not OUR lord, after all. He's yours, maybe, or at least some of you, but for the majority of the population of the planet he's not much of anything.

We know that Christians exist and have dominated the Western world for most of this time period, so I don't see any problem with using "their" calendar to chart the Common Era.

Right. The point when CE begins is the incorrect date of Christ's birth as set by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century. His calculations were out by five or six years, I believe.

Exactly. If anything, Christians should be offended at everyone attaching "AD" to the current calendar, because it is incorrect about the date of Christ's supposed birth in the first place. I mean, if someone suggested to me that we celebrate Freddy Mercury's birthday on December 25th, I'd be pretty affronted.

[L Ron Cupboard]

I have just started to use CE and BCE.

[The Shrailleeni Empire]

I am an atheist, and I still use A.D. as much as possible. Why? Because if you're going to base a year system on a fictitious event calculated incorrectly by a medieval monk, you might as well be honest about it. There is nothing "Common" about the so-called Common-Era in any sense of the word. If you want to start using a different dating system I'll gladly get on board, but actually change the date to something that makes rational sense if you're going to do so.

That said, in speaking I refer to the year as "by the Christian reckoning," and in papers I use C.E. because peer pressure.

[L Ron Cupboard]

Perhaps we should switch to BE (Before Elvis) and AE (After Elvis).