Talk:BC

Before Christ/Ante Christum

The article says "Before Christ, from the Latin Ante Christum"

This is not supported by a source, "Ante Christum" is not mentioned in the before christ page, and this contradicts what it says in Ante Christum Natum - "These terms are chiefly found in modern Latin texts... These terms were not used in medieval and Renaissance Latin texts." Basically "Ante Christum" comes from "Before Christ", not the other way around as is claimed here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.53.128 (talk) 16:31, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Removals and reasons

Please add these back when articles are present or anticipated:

Red-links

• Bosnian Council, the World lobby community of Bosnia and Herzegovina

No-links

• BC, Underground rap/hip-hop artist from Chester, PA that specializes in freestyle rap. Sometimes goes by BC Rebel, now resides in southern NJ.
• British Cycle, the English/ISO system thread designator common in bicycle bottom brackets
• %BC is the URL encoded version of the quarter(¼) character

---

Sorry if the last half dozen of changes are mine. I am a first-day-newbie and still learning--- Jo

BC, Canada

I have moved the link to the Canadian province up to just below before Christ. While being alphabetic is nice, BC is more like referring to the province than a NZ steam engine class. I have also pushed a few up that topped googling BC Korandder 06:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Before Christ time

Shouldn't we have an entire section on the year counter BC/BCE?

Move

If there was talk here before, it seems to have gone missing. I reverted an unwarranted move of the talk page to Talk:BritishColumbia but there was no contents there. I haven't been able to trace any previous contents. DJ Clayworth 18:27, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Despite your statement that you reverted an unwrranted move, the original Talk:BC page is still at Talk:BritishColumbia. That it is indeed the original talk page can be confirmed by noting that Jo (Josepf Eichhorn at 10:13, 21 Sep 2003) did indeed perform multiple edits to BC on that date according to its history. I have monitored this talk page for one and a half years, and the BC/BCE comment was indeed the only addition to it during that period. I have requested that Talk:BritishColumbia be moved back to Talk:BC on Wikipedia:Requested moves. — Joe Kress 02:53, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Before Christ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.187.104 (talk) 20:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

pot?

Is the grown in British Columbia thing serious? Theshibboleth 23:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Sushi?

I was redirected here from a link on the sushi page to B.C. roll, but I don't see any mention of that here. Amanita 11:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

British Columbia as B.C. or BC

Is there a way to briefly state that "B.C." or "BC" are commonly used, virtually more often, than the full name of British Columbia is? This isn't trivial, and comparisons to Boston College and wherever else aren't valid; if anything "B.C." is used as much as if it where the name of the province as the more-formal-sounding full name is. "Used interchangeably/synonymously with...." or something like that?Skookum1 (talk) 00:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The all-around use of the postal abbreviation "BC" is rather dumb. For general purposes, these are all the REAL abbreviations: B.C., N.B., N.S., P.E.I., P.Q., N.W.T., Y.T. (Yukon Territory), D.C. (District of Columbia), N.H., N.J., N.M., N.Y., N.C., N.D., R.I., S.C., S.D., W.Va., N.Y.C. (New York City), P.R. (Puerto Rico), N.S.W. (New South Wales), S.A. (South Australia), W.A. (Western Australia), A.C.T. (Australian Capital Territory), and N.T. (Northern Territory). Why be a lazy dog? Furthermore, Alta. = Alberta, Sask. = Saskatchewan, Alas. = Alaska, Nfld. = Newfoundland, Qlnd. = Queensland, V.I. = Virgin Islands, and Jo'burg = Johannesburg.

24.121.195.165 (talk) 03:34, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:41, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

BC → BC (disambiguation) — Relisted. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:55, 19 November 2010 (UTC) per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The primary topic of BC is Before Christ. BC would never be used as an initialism or acronym otherwise without explaination. The secondary topic may be British Columbia but only Canadians would use that; people outside of Canada may not know what it means. McLerristarr | Mclay1 02:55, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

• Comment. If you'd look to the post immediately above this one you would see that there are people who would argue that "BC" for "British Columbia" is a very common geographical initialism used on maps all over the world. -- œ^™ 12:09, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose While I agree that Before Christ can be considered the primary topic, Before Christ is a redirect to Anno Domini. Since Before Christ is the first item on the DAB page and includes a decent summary of what it means, I see no reason to redirect BC to Anno Domini, which would require having to put a third hat note on Anno Domini back-linking to BC (disambiguation).--kelapstick^(bainuu) 13:15, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

  Which would be easily accomplished through the {{redirect}} hatnote -- that's the kind of thing that that redirect was created for. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:53, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Not clearly the primary topic; the comic strip and the Canadian province are too important to claim any one use is primary. Powers ^T 13:27, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

  I agree with the oppose, but I do offer a correction: primary topic is determined by readership usage, not by importance. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:53, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Unclear usage pattern to mark one as primary. We could set up a couple of redirect for use only on the dab page, e.g. BC (date designator) and BC (province), wait, and see how their traffic compares to the base name. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:53, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Agree with JHunter, there's no clear primary topic - and BC=before Christ is increasingly archaic (modern usage is BCE - before the Christian era - or BP, before present). BC for Boston College is, in "the East" (Canada as well as US, often enough), and BC for Baja California is increasingly used in English (mostly California, granted). BC's not even standard in Canada for British Columbia; can't remember exactly what just now but there was a usage in the Maritimes, meaning something out there, such that I had to clarify myself sometimes. That's all personal-OR, but by way of testimony that even as a British Columbian, I don't think "we" have the primary usage. And looking at what's on this page, there's just too many acronyms in too many places to say that any one of them has primacy over another, and that includes BC=Before Christ.Skookum1 (talk) 18:42, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

  Again, agreed with the oppose, but BC is hardly archaic.[1] Opposition to it may be increasing, but that doesn't make it increasingly archaic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:50, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support and redirect BC to Anno Domini. Clear primary topic. The political correctness that avoids terms with a Christian background should not be allowed to prevail in Wikipedia; That is, when and if it succeeds (it probably will but hasn't yet) then we follow, but we don't promote such agendas here. The suggestion above that B.C. (comic strip) might rival the long-standing (but admittedly dwindling) usage on dates (and after which the comic strip is of course named) smacks of desperation, frankly! Andrewa (talk) 23:52, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support clear primary meaning, very widely used and understood term, British Columbia and the comic strip may not be particularly obscure but considerably less well known, even in the English-speaking countries, suspect some North-America-centrism. PatGallacher (talk) 00:47, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

  Avoiding bias doesn't mean we ignore important meanings that aren't known globally. Powers ^T 14:04, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

  Selection of a primary topic isn't ignoring the other topics, though. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:17, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose per others. Doctorfluffy (robe and wizard hat) 01:32, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
• Comment – This is an international encyclopaedia. Outside of Canada and the US, BC is unlikely to mean anything significant other than Before Christ. I'm English/Australian and was suprised to find out the BC was a disambiguation page; I didn't know of any other common intialisms for BC. I bet most Australians (myself not included) wouldn't even know that British Columbia existed, let alone where it is. McLerristarr | Mclay1 02:29, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

  Maps outside of Canada and the US use the initialism BC too. And if most Australians would be ignorant of British Columbia's mere existence then they obviously wouldn't be aware of its common initialism either, all the more reason to be in support of teaching them! this being an international encyclopedia and all.. -- œ^™ 19:54, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

If usage is different in North America, it seems like that is a position supporting a dab page at the primary location. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 05:34, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

• Usage is not different in North America (possibly excluding the State of Wahington and Western Canada); outside the special phrasing of Vancouver, BC, it means the date. The claim that BC/AD is declining is crystal-gasing; it is no longer universal, but it hasn't been for longer than most Wikipedians have been alive. Support, therefore. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:49, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Prominent uses of BC include the province, the date, and the comic. A primary topic is "highly likely – much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined – to be the subject being sought when a reader enters that term in the Search box". No evidence that Before Christ meets that criteria, but here is evidence that it doesn't: Page traffic for Anno Domini and British Columbia is about the same. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:05, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Just because people visit British Columbia doesn't mean that they know BC stands for that. Before Christ is the only BC that can be used outside of context. If a person randomly said "BC", the first thing that would come to anyone's mind is Before Christ. McLerristarr | Mclay1 03:46, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe if they were a historian... but if they were a geographer or mapmaker the first thing that would come in mind is British Columbia. -- œ^™ 18:48, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, you do live in British Columbia, which is a bit of a conflict of interest here. You are clearly more aware of the BC/British Columbia initialism than most people would be. Every American state has an initialism but many people outside the US (except maybe Canada, I don't know) would have no idea what they are. BC may be used on maps but it is unlikely to be used in writing, especially formal writing, whereas BC would nearly always be used in formal writing over Before Christ. That's why I think it is the primary topic, but given the resistance to change anything, I think this discussion can be ended as "no consensus".

• Oppose. BC would never be used as an initialism or acronym otherwise without explaination: false. It's commonly so used for the province. In Syracuse, New York, where I live, BC is a restaurant. When I was in Boston, it was Boston College. I use bc programming language on my Mac every day. In each case, no explanation is needed, as the meaning of BC depends on the context. --Pnm (talk) 05:56, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
  • And if there was no context, the most common use of BC would be assumed. The majority of the world is not Canadian, has never lived in Boston, has never been to the BC restaurant, has never read a BC comic and has never used bc programming language. I'm not trying to say BC is never used for anything, it is just far more commonly used for the dating system. McLerristarr | Mclay1 06:55, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Suggested Addition

BC = Business Continuity - see Business continuity (where the abbreviation BC is used widely).— Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.26.122.12 (talk • contribs) 05:20, 25 January 2012‎

 Done -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

BC Stand for Blast Corps the N64 Game. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.191.122 (talk) 10:17, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

"The phrase "crystal gasing" (seen above) is entirely incorrect. The phrase is really "crystal gazing", and it means "looking into a crystal ball". "gasing" is a misspelling of "gassing", as in "gassing up a car."24.121.195.165 (talk) 03:42, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Just to toss another possibility in here, bc is a command line calculator for Linux, Unix and *BSD operating systems. There's no article for it as yet, and may never be one, but that doesn't mean it can't be listed. I'm neutral on the idea, but I'm tossing it out to see if anybody has a strong opinion on it, one way or the other. JDZeff (talk) 19:27, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Baja California

The fact that Baja California is a huge peninsula in northwestern Mexico is FAR more important than the fact that it is divided, politically, into two states of Mexico that have similar names. Alto California is the northern counterpart of Baja California, and Alto California is in the United States of America.24.121.195.165 (talk) 03:57, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Battery charging

It also means battery charging according to https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-safety-symbol-with-the-letters-BC-inside-a-circle-mean - quote: "Mike Percival, Director and Freelance Electronics Engineer \ Answered April 8, 2018 · Author has 4K answers and 3.3M answer views \\ [California Energy Commission Compliant, BC in a circle] It’s a standard for battery charging, but only in the USA as far as I am aware. \ 664 views" --User123o987name (talk) 11:11, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

British Columbia should be PT

Honestly I think that the Canadian province of British Columbia is the primary topic for the term. cookie monster 755 04:16, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Unprotect the article

Please unprotect this article because no vandalism is in this article. 195.5.3.58 (talk) 10:16, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

The meaning of ad, ac, bc,

Bible days the meaning of AD, AC, BC 66.74.129.251 (talk) 02:34, 21 May 2023 (UTC)