20 MAY 1995, Page 31

Work it out

Sir: Dot Wordsworth (Mind your language, 25 March) is interesting about language but should be more careful with figures. Dates BC are counted backwards, so the 6,000th anniversary of the creation of the world in 4004 BC would fall in about 1996, not 2004 as she implies. I say 'about 1996', partly betause of the argument about when a cen- tury, or a millennium, starts (2000 or 2001?), and partly because the monk who calculated the beginning of the Christian era wrongly went straight from 1 BC to 1 AD. As a result, for the beginning of Arch- bishop Ussher's seventh millennium we can choose among 1996, 1997 and 1998.

Ron Farquhar

111 Graham Road, London SW19