The Lasnerian Calendar

New calendar systems arise from signifigant historical events. Some come about from a religious event, others from the rise or fall of an empire.

The Lasnerian calendar arose from an extended battle in alt.folklore.urban.

It all started innocently enough.
Someone made reference to a "'60s hit song," and a respondent pointed out that the song had been released in 1958.

From there, the world divided into two camps. On one side were the Lasnerians, led by cjl. On the other side were, err, the rest of us, with the cause championed by snopes.

The Lasnerian view is that "dates" such as the '60s or '50s actually refer to eras (mostly) unrelated to the years referenced. Within the Lasnerian world, there is no irony to saying that the '50s ran from the end of WW2 until 1964.

Now, lest I be branded too biased of a historian, I'll admit that I agree with the Lasnerian view as far as how people think of the past. But when someone throws a number at me, I expect that number to have meaning.

The fallout of the Great Calendar Debate (aside from possibly contributing to cjl's reduced presence in AFU) was that people posting to alt.folklore.urban took to classifying dates as Lasnerian (meaning, give or take a decade or so) and Non-Lasnerian (NL).

Back to the calendars
Back to the shiny objects

Copyright 1997, Drew Lawson.
[Last updated: 16 June 1997]
URL: http://www.furrfu.com/magpies/cal_lasnerian.html
drew@furrfu.com