For a story in which the main event occurs about 4 p.m. on, say, a Thursday. If I wish to label a few chapters as "Day One," "Day Two," etc, is Thursday Day one and Friday Day Two (even though most of the day is less than 24 hours from the event)? Or is Friday Day One and Saturday Day Two? I do not want to have to change the numbers at 4 p.m. each day - but want to follow the traditional midnight to midnight numbering.
Thursday would be day 1 for me...
That would probably be the case for me too, but I can think of circumstances where Friday would have a stronger case. For example, some superpower knocks everyone unconscious at 4pm on Thursday, and the survivors don't wake up to enjoy the benefits of their transformations until Friday.
AJ
IMHO unless you are writing each hour ala "24", Thursday would be "Day 1", Friday "Day 2", Saturday "Day 3", etc.
If there is a pandemic outbreak, nuclear war, etc then Thursday may be Day Zero.
I wonder if the convention came from the use of launch count downs to zero or from the Khmer Rouge declaring their genocide to be Year Zero.
I am not a fan of the counting from zero thing. It makes no sense to me.
Zero is the absence of something. There is nothing to be counted.
If you have 0 apples, you have no apples. If you have an apple, it can not be the 0th apple.
To the above example, you can not have a day zero because 0 days means there isn't a day at all.
I am not a fan of the counting from zero thing. It makes no sense to me.
Harry Belafonte et al would disagree with you:
"Day-o, day-o
Daylight come and we want go home"
etc ;-)
AJ
Not a number.
In speech, zero is often pronounced "owe" as in "owe dark thirty" ;-)
AJ
In speech, zero is often pronounced "owe" as in "owe dark thirty" ;-)
Yes, but the o in "day-o" from the song is the letter o not the number 0.
Propaganda to make the citizens of the Republic accept their legions' actions in the slave provinces of Guatemala & Paraguay. Of course up is down, peace is war, etc.
The head of the United Fruit Company and the head of the CIA were brothers.
It could be "Day Zero" because it is not a Full Day.
Thus "Day-1" is the First FULL Day.
For example, the Day of an Invasion is "D-Day", and subsequent days are D+1, D+5, D+10, etc.
The most famous D-Day was June 6th, 1944, Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy France to become the liberation of (Wester) Europe {since the Allies had landed in southern Europe in 1943}. the first full day of combat was June 7th D+1. Plans for landing reinforcements or building the Mulberry temporary harbors were scheduled for specific days after the initial landing. This was important because the landings were scheduled for June 5th but got pushed back by 1 day due to weather.
Thus, the Allied plans did not have to be changed because they were based on when the Allies actually landed, not the day they were scheduled to land.
The Cobra Breakout began on July 28th D+52
To reiterate, an incomplete day could be termed "Day Zero" and Day 1 would be the first complete day after.
It could be "Day Zero" because it is not a Full Day.
No. Day zero implies no day, not even a fraction of a day.
It could be "Day Zero" because it is not a Full Day.
'Day Zero' is the most logical name. Then the day before the seminal event is 'Day Minus One'.
If you call the day of the seminal event 'Day One', then the day before becomes 'Day Zero' and the day before that becomes 'Day Minus One', which is irrational.
AJ
I am not a fan of the counting from zero thing. It makes no sense to me.
Zero is the absence of something. There is nothing to be counted.
If you have 0 apples, you have no apples. If you have an apple, it can not be the 0th apple.
To the above example, you can not have a day zero because 0 days means there isn't a day at all.
No-Day Zero:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
Day One:
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
So from the very beginning, you are correct.
No mention of an atmosphere yet. So no sky glow. Did the first terminator line move across the waters at the speed of light (radiating from the Source of creation) or the speed of thought (pounded out on the Great Author's typewriter in the sky)?.
Fiat Lux is a much more succinct way of stating it, but can be confused with '70s Italian cars catching fire from the inevitable oil leaks.
So from the very beginning, you are correct.
You missed an important bit from that biblical quote to talk about the first day.
KJV:
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
The simple way to avoid confusion is to have the narrator say "It's Thursday - the day the problem began!"
The first day that includes the Main Event is Day One. Day Zero has zero part of the Main Event, so is the day before that.
The day you are born is day 1. Mathematically it is possible the day before that is day zero. Then the day before that is day minus one. But that is just math. The days you are alive are integers that increase over time. Once you die, all days are zeros.
For counting purposes, especially since you said you want to start the time over at midnight, Thursday would be day 1. Nothing says the first day has to be 24 hours of activity.
Only if you wanted to count from some event would you do it any different, but then you'd change at 4 every day.
Think of it like being born. The day you are born is your first day alive, but you're not 1 day old until you've been alive for 24 hours. But if you were born 4pm on thursday, by Friday morning it would be your 2nd day on earth, but you wouldn't yet be one day old.
I might be tempted to label the days 'E-Day', 'E-day+1', 'E-Day+2' where 'E-Day' is the day the event occurred.