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Personally I love it when people do this. It's just.. it saves me the few seconds it takes, every time, to subtract "1" from the number.

It's not that hard with "20th century" which I'm conditioned to map to "last century" immediately, but when someone did something in the 17th century I first think "Oh like 1750-ish" and then I realize I'm a century off, and it disrupts my reading flow.

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I find it remarkable that it's that hard for you.

They do not say it was hard. There is a difference between being hard and requiring 0.5 second more of thinking, which can and does disrupt the reading flow.

Exactly this. I actually think it’s exactly the opposite of assuming your audience is a stupid: it’s respecting them enough to do the work yourself instead of offloading to them. I’ll die on the hill that 19th century referring to the 1800s is fundamentally unintuitive.

It shouldn't take 0.5 seconds of thinking, unless you're a total historical illiterate.

You're not arguing in good faith here. Which is fine, but then please stop insulting others.

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