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EIGHTEEN HUNDREDS/NINETEENTH CENTURY |
"Eighteen hundreds," "sixteen hundreds" and so forth are not exactly errors; the problem is that they are used almost exclusively by people who are nervous about saying "nineteenth century" when, after all, the years in that century begin with the number eighteen. This should be simple: few people are unclear about the fact that this is the twentieth century even though our dates begin with nineteen. Just be consistent about adding one to the second digit in a year and you've got the number of its century. It took a hundred years to get to the year 100, so the next hundred years, which are named "101," "102," etc. were in the second century. This also works BC. The four hundreds BC are the fifth century BC. Using phrases like "eighteen hundreds" is a signal to your readers that you are weak in math and history alike.
On a related point, because our calendar started with the year 1 instead a year zero, the third millennium of the Common Era will not begin until January 1, 2001. The year 2000 is the last year of the second millennium, not the first of the third. But because people get all excited by Big Round Numbers, the turn of the millennium will be celebrated a year early no matter how many of us point out the erroneous calculation involved.