"Year of the lord" (not "our" lord, please double check what I wrote) is the literal translation of Anno Domini and it's the reason why years are counted from one instead of zero. I quoted the expression, wrote "lord" in lowercase and added "purported" to make it clear that the religious reference was only for historical reasons, I don't know what else I could have done. If I wanted to imbue some religious meaning I probably would have said "Jesus" or "the Christ".
I am also not American and not a native English speaker. In fact Latin languages say in expanded form "après Jésus-Christ", "dopo Cristo", "despues de Cristo" (abbreviation is only used in writing), so even speakers who are not religious very much know the reference even if they couldn't care less. We're stuck with it.
I agree that it's more of a "who wants to be a millionaire" quirk than something that actually matters, but this case of correcting someone was one of the few cases where it matters.
I am Christian in a very literal sense, would use AD dating etc. and have no problem with it whatsoever, I just don't feel the need to suffix (or sometimes prefix) it with 'year of our lord' the way some Americans do; I find it quite jarring.
It's like feeling the need to say 'day of rest' or 'sabbath' every time you say a particular day of the week, or some other (possibly areligious) descriptor of something whenever it's mentioned.
You're on a tangent, who cares what it's called but the fact is that years started at 1, not 0, therefore centuries also start on the first year, not the zeroth year.
I was referring to 1701 to 1800 inclusive, which is not the standard way people refer to centuries and is not what other people will mean or will think you mean, in general.
I am also not American and not a native English speaker. In fact Latin languages say in expanded form "après Jésus-Christ", "dopo Cristo", "despues de Cristo" (abbreviation is only used in writing), so even speakers who are not religious very much know the reference even if they couldn't care less. We're stuck with it.
I agree that it's more of a "who wants to be a millionaire" quirk than something that actually matters, but this case of correcting someone was one of the few cases where it matters.