Historical characters routinely have their age indicated only by their year of birth. Good enough for most purposes, though crucial bits of interpretation can be lost if, for example, you do not know the precise date on which they reached their majority
For those of us still alive, year of birth is good enough for most administrative purposes. Birthdays are of purely personal interest, & also, if we are lucky, important to friends & family
Sometimes, however, they matter in an official world. When, exactly, can you buy cigarettes? Leave school? Fight a war? Get a drivers licence? Or a bus pass
Have sex. Or be forced to retire from work? Sententious points, matters for wider political debate, dragging in issues of gender & sexual orientation as well as just age discrimination
The so-called millennium bug meant that it was not a simple matter to adopt, always & everywhere, the recording of everybodys full date of birth in a computer database. Much ingenuity went in to finding ways of coping with people who were born in 18 hundred & something, or would reach a significant milestone in 2000 & something, without having to use precious computer storage for all those redundant 19s
One of the worst aspects of all the domesday scenarios presented to us as the year 2000 approached was the calumny heaped on those of us who, allegedly, failed to realise that this would happen one day
But having enough computer space for 4-digit years does not solve all problems. I dont mean to be flippant, but there is the 9/11 problem. How strange that the London version should have happened 7/7, thus avoiding some confusion
Im not about to launch in to the realms of numerology. Just to remark that different conventions provide traps for the unwary, with potentially awful consequences when DD/MM is confused with MM/DD
Day of birth matters too. Mondays child etc. And time. Especially if youre a twin. But even as a singleton it somehow seems an essential part of my identity that I was born at 5.40pm on a Sunday
An astrologer would want to know not just exact time & date, but also place of birth
Maybe a judge would too. I cant remember whether the following tale represents an actual case or a purely theoretical legal conundrum
There were 2 cousins. One born December 31, 1905. The other born January 1, 1906
Both were grandsons of a deceased American millionaire. Under the terms of his will, the elder was the heir to a fortune
The problem: one was born in Sydney, Australia, the other in Los Angeles. On any unified, universal time system, such as GMT, the one born in 1906 was older than the one born in 1905
Not as simple to solve as one might think. The implication of using GMT to decide would be that we all might need to change our date of birth when travelling or migrating
The question of a persons age is not just of personal or individual interest. In the field of statistical analysis even more conundrums arise
To be continued
