Technically UTC is not the same as GMT. The two can differ by up to 0.9 seconds.

And I'm steadfastly among the ranks of grumpy old farts who still use AD and BC.

> Technically UTC is not the same as GMT. The two can differ by up to 0.9 seconds.

It’s UT1 and UTC that differ by up to 0.9 seconds. GMT and UTC are equal unless you’re in a specialized field (navigation) where it is considered to be UT1. Otherwise, GMT is just the name of a time zone UTC+0000.

TAI measures seconds. UT1 measures the earth’s rotation. UTC combines these by using TAI plus a changing offset to keep within 0.9s of UT1.

Are you sure? GMT is the UK time standard defined by the British Government. Last time I looked they had defined it to be the same as UTC.

That may not be the case anymore.

I think that the bigger difference is that GMT is a time zone used in countries that observe daylight savings time. UTC applies universally, everywhere and always, but it's a little bit nonsensical to use GMT to describe events that happen during summer in the UK.

Calling it BC and AD isn't worshipping God or Jesus, really any more than calling it Saturday is worshipping the Roman God Saturn.

Remember to make your sacrifice to Tíw this morning.

Put the Thor back in Thursday! Damn secularists

Really the inaccuracy alone would be a decent reason to prefer BCE/CE over BC/AD even if devout.

BCE/CE at least have the benefit of a consistent language backing them, rather than English for BC and Latin for AD.

maybe we drop one vestigial nod to the middle ages and compromise: BC/YL

What's the inaccuracy? Are you speaking of when Jesus Christ was born? At one point it was based on an estimation of that, but for a long time it has been standardized and isn't related to that anymore. There is a very specific year that is "year 1".

I have a bit of an issue with it because it does seem to endorse a religion, but still.

And that’s why I don’t use that name.

There is a non-trivial amount of the English language that has religious baggage that I suspect you'll have a difficult time first identifying and then avoiding.

Also he didn't really criticize anyone, except himself, by calling himself old.

You can call it CE or AD, that does not change the origin of the choice for the year 0...

In fact CE makes that origin the 'common' default.

There is no Year 0 in the Gregorian calendar, fwiw.

It’s old enough that it skips from 1 BC to 1 AD.

A bit like US elevators (as opposed to UK lifts that stop on the ground floor in-between).

You understood what I meant, let's stay on point.

Using GMT would be quite confusing, because most GMT-using countries are also DST-using and people in those countries tend to (strictly speaking incorrectly) refer to the timezone as GMT all year round.

There's also a not-insignificant risk that the UK moves timezone at some point; if it stays in Europe it will likely be required to drop DST, and may end up on UTC+1. This would make GMT even more confusion-prone.

> people in those countries tend to (strictly speaking incorrectly) refer to the timezone as GMT all year round. Not really. I've found that mistake much more common in Americans. Calling the time in London GMT got baked in to some software (ing Outlook) but locals perfectly well understand BST.

You say “politically correct” as if “UTC” is a phrase that deeply offends people.