Note From the Editor

No Millennium Headlines by Walter C. Wright

One of the pleasures of editing The Actuarial Review, or sometimes a major pain, is the opportunity to determine the "style" of the language that we use. Several years ago we had the great excitement of deleting the apostrophe in "workers compensation." More recently we struggled with "E-mail" versus "e-mail." With this issue we must state our position on the word "millennium" or, more properly, on when the old one ends and the new one begins.

For the past few months newspaper and magazine headlines have been trumpeting the start of the new millennium. But not the AR—at least not until next year, when the new millennium really begins.

Some readers may think that our editorial policy is picky, nerdy, and stereotypically actuarial. That we should get on the good-times bandwagon, go with the flow, relax and enjoy the celebrations. After all, they may argue, if The New York Times refers to the year 2000 as the start of the new millennium, who are we do differ?

Well, we answer, the AR has always had high standards and The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage is one of the shrines at which we worship. The New York Times has bowed to the pressure of popular usage regarding the "millennium," as stated in their recently revised Manual of Style and Usage. However, there is no reason for the AR to follow suit—the AR certainly should not be a follower when it comes to numbers. We're the numbers guys. Just because The New York Times once had an article in which Supreme Court Justice Scalia commented that 1 divided by 0 is infinity, that doesn't make it right.

So, we choose to be technically correct regarding the term "millennium." We celebrated when the year 2000 rolled in, but this was because we got excited by all the zeros, not because it was the start of the new millennium. We'll be able to celebrate wildly (at least from an actuarial perspective) again next year, at the real start of the new millennium. This shows that being technically correct does have its rewards.

We may eventually adopt the currently incorrect definition of millennium, because the meanings of words do change over time. In fact, Webster's identifies a somewhat obscure meaning of "millennium": any period of great happiness, peace, and prosperity. So, although refusing to take part in the millennium frenzy, we do invoke this old meaning of the word in order to wish the CAS and all its members a long millennium.