• millennium •
Pronunciation: mê-len-ni-êm • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. A span of 1000 years. 2. A thousandth anniversary. 3. (Christianity) The 1000 years Christ will reign on Earth as predicted by the book of Revelation (20:1-5).
Notes: Today's Good Word is one of the most often misspelled words in English: most of us can't believe that both the L and the N are doubled—but they are. We chose this word today as the millennium Good Word. Yes, this is the millennial (thousandth) word we have sent out since beginning our series in 2004! As you can see, the adjective for today's word is millennial. Don't forget the preferable plural of this word is millennia.
In Play: Remember the "millennium bug"? The universal computer crash predicted because computer calendars were set to calculate only through 1999? It never showed up. If you are reading this, though, the millennial Good Word has shown up and we are very proud of it and hope to write a thousand more over the coming years. Keep the suggestions coming in.
Word History: Today's Good Word begins with Latin mille "thousand" and ends on a variant of Latin ann-us "year" plus the noun ending, -ium. No one knows where mille came from; in Greek "thousand" is khilioi (from which English borrowed kilo-) and milion is a Roman mile, 1000 paces. Annus (as in per annum) is yet another mystery. It apparently came from the past participle of a Proto-Indo-European word for "go, pass", as in time passed (past). However, we find no trace of it outside Latin. (In celebrating this milestone we are have to thank Andrew Shaffer, who created the works behind our feature, and Paul Ogden, Mary Jane Stoneburg, and Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira for their excellent editing. I make all the errors, of course, so credit any of those you see to me.)
MILLENNIUM--Our 1000th Good Word!
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MILLENNIUM--Our 1000th Good Word!
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- Grand Panjandrum
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Re: MILLENNIUM--Our 1000th Good Word!
.....you mean --- this isn't 1907??Remember the "millennium bug"? The universal computer crash predicted because computer calendars were set to calculate only through 1999? It never showed up.
I too got the double-N epiphany back in '99.
Cead mille congratulations, Doc, and many happy (carriage) returns!
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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The only reason it wasn't more widespread is that IT professionals spent long hours in the several years leading up to Y2K patching or replacing antiquated systems. A few did slip through: someone in New York City received a bill for some unbelievable fine for an overdue book. As for utilities, I think a lot of them must have crossed their fingers. You can't bring down the entire electric grid or major pipelines just to run a test.but... it did happen, it just wasn't as widespread as most people feared, the concentration camps were in place should widespead anarchy occur, well I'm sure they won't go to waste.
mark lone-gunman Bailey
"To err is human; to really screw things up requires a computer."
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
I saw on someone's website, "Failure isn't an option. With Microsoft comes written into the program,", or words to that effect."To err is human; to really screw things up requires a computer."
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
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