With what you know of the difference between these types of numbers, can you explain why the year 2010 in “January 1, 2010,” really is 2010 and not 2009? (Hint: you can’t pick years at random.)
I don’t quite understand the question. Is the date supposed to be in a list so January 1 being first and then 2010 second. Why would it be 2009? The hint is suggesting that it can’t be a cardinal number but I really don’t get it.
Yes, you can’t have year 2020 without year 2019 so you can’t randomly jump around time, thus why years start at 1 being the “1st year” and also why nobody says the “zeroeth” anything. I mean, we don’t even have that word in English really.
Now there are some cultures that do birthdays kind of with a zero year (the year of conception), that even that’s kind of having two different first years rather than a 0th year and a 1st year.