Is 2020 a new decade or not?!

[Utterlybutterly8]

Can someone help settle this for me please? I popped round to a neighbour’s house last night for a quick drink before midnight. We were talking about 2020 and I said that I couldn’t believe we were entering a whole new decade, or something along those lines. One of the other guests said that it’s not actually a new decade and won’t be until 2021. I’ve never heard this before so was a bit confused - 2020 is the start of a new decade isn’t it? I’ve noticed some of the papers are referring to it as such. AIBU to think he was wrong?

People get excited when the final digit turns over. This doesn't affect when a decade or millennium begins. The first year of the calendar was 1AD/CE. 2000 years later was 1st of Jan 2001. There really is no room for debate.

It all depends how you label the celebration. You could celebrate the year 2000 in 2000, but not the third millennium (problem was that most people thought they were). You could have celebrated the start of the twenties a couple of days ago, but not the third decade of the century which starts next year (nobody used that terminology, so doesn't matter!).