The title says it all, hopefully.
I'm watching a lot of historical documentaries, and--according to the Gregorian system--the dating system is divided at the (approximate) time of Jesus' birth.
I just can't keep the latin straight enough to correct people when they say "A.D. means 'after death.'"
A.D. stands for "Anno Domini" which means "(In the) Year of our Lord" in Latin.
B.C. stands for "Before Christ" in English.
C.E. means the same thing as A.D. as far as time goes, but it has been made politically correct and non religious as it stands for "Common Era" in English.
B.C.E. is the politically correct version of B.C. as it stands for "Before Common Era" in English.
AD: Anno Domini - in the year of the Lord
sorry, I don't have any good mnemonics for it. Just learn a little Latin and it makes sense.
BC: Before Christ, pretty straightforward
CE/BCE: Common Era/Before Common Era: preferred by Westernish scholars trying to avoid religious bias and posit their work in a more secular context in their numbering. Problematic because it's not a Common Era anyway.
BC = Before Christ AD = Anno Domini, which means Year of our Lord in Latin. Maybe you can remember anno, which means year, by thinking of related words like annual and anniversary. Domini means the lord. Some related words are dominate, dominant. These are the only Latin words involved in these names.
Then, non-Christian people were unhappy about using phrases that made them refer to Jesus as lord and messiah (which is what Christ means). So BCE was introduced as something that sounds very similar to BC, but which would avoid religious mention. BCE stands for Before the Common Era. And AD became CE, for Common Era.
I'm equally clumsy with these terms, but isn't there a contraction that stands for __ years "before current date"?