The Glitch Before the Glitch

If you thought solving the year 2000 computer glitch was going to be tricky, wait till you hear about the year 1999 problem.

Never heard of it? Neither had Marietta Nelson--who now wishes she hadn’t.

A reference librarian at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md.--one of two official U.S. timekeepers--Nelson routinely fields queries from people wondering how to correctly express times and dates.

The Miss Manners of chronology recently received an e-mail asking: How do you write the year 1999 in Roman numerals? Should it be the windy MDCCCCLXXXXVIIII? The economical MCMXCIX? The snappy MIM?

Finding the answer led her on a strange journey to the roots of a mysterious historical holdout. Latin may be dead, but the seven Roman numerals--I, V, X, L, C, D, and M--live on in odd corners of the planet.

They lend dignity to clock faces and a quotient of cool to computer chips such as Intel’s Pentium II processor. They enumerate popes and kings, Olympic Games and Super Bowls. Hollywood has long inscribed film copyright dates in Latin.

Thus, while the year 1999 Roman numeral problem won’t result in railroad wrecks or bank failures, it could result in messy, nonstandard usage. For the researchers at the Institute of Standards and Technology, who thrive on precision, this is clearly a disaster waiting to happen.