In my last column I used “CE” instead of “aAD” (“Common Era” as opposed to “Anno Domini”) to report the date of the Second Lateran Council. A fair number of you, my readers, did not like this. So I have been thinking about it.

In my last column I used “ce” instead of “ad” (“Common Era” as opposed to “Anno Domini”) to report the date of the Second Lateran Council. A fair number of you, my readers, did not like this. So I have been thinking about it.

I accept that it is a tricky issue – and for as long as we are all understanding each other (NO ONE asked me what I meant) it probably does not matter too much. But I took a telephone survey of 20 adults under 30.

All except two of them were graduates. Four of them had Latin GCSE, or the Scottish equivalent. Only seven of them knew what ad stood for – although they all knew, when questioned, what it meant. These young people were all white and British (and all of them except one baptised).

If I had done the same “survey” of young people of Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist or secular humanist I very much doubt I’d have got a higher score. One of the ones who did know what the letters stood for said firmly “not my Lord and Master” and made a rather clever pun about domination.

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