Pronouncing the new year

[Tunnelcat]

I've heard people pronounce the year in 2 different ways. Do you pronounce it:

TWO THOUSAND AND NINE

or:

TWENTY 'OH' NINE

It always seems that at the beginning of a century, people pronounce the year in full, like they did in 1900. It was at first pronounced ONE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED. Why did they switch? They were saying eighteen ninety nine just the previous year? It kept going as ONE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND ONE and so on until about 1910 when people must have gotten tired and started shortening it to NINETEEN TEN, at least according to my grandmother when I queried her about it years ago. It took about a decade before it switched over. Once people changed the syntax, even 1900 became NINETEEN HUNDRED in later writings and speech.

The same thing is happening with 2000. People are mostly pronouncing it in full right now. Will people ever switch from TWO THOUSAND AND TEN to TWENTY TEN next year? If not, when will it change over, when it becomes a mouthful at TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY ONE?

[Dakatsu]

It's so old people can go \"back in the thirties\" without saying \"back in the nineteen thrities\".

[Testiculese]

The first ten years I always pronounce the two thousand. I skip the 'and' though. Two thousand nine. Twenty oh nine doesn't sound right.

Once you get to the tens+, then it's easy to say twenty ten, twenty eleven, ect.

For 1900, I always say nineteen hundred. for 1901 I always say nineteen oh one. There's no justification in drawing out the words one thousand nine hundred and one, whereas two thousand and one rolls off the tongue quickly.

[Krom]

Now if you think about it for a second, calling it twenty oh nine doesn't really make it any easier to say, and calling it twenty nine is obviously completely wrong. So most people call it two thousand (and) nine, making it any shorter doesn't really work till you reach the ten where you can call it twenty ten and it works fine.


Fakeedit: beaten.

[Tunnelcat]

Twenty 'oh' nine (like nineteen 'oh' nine) just rolls off the tongue better than two thousand and nine or two thousand nine. It's when you get to the teens and after it becomes more of a problem. Two thousand and fifteen or two thousand fifteen just seems like more effort than twenty fifteen. It'll be interesting to see which way people will choose to say the year after 2010.

[SilverFJ]

According to most science fictions all the cool space adventures are supposed to be happening now anyway.

[Spidey]

Two Thousand Nine…no “And”.

Actually, it’s more like Two Thousin Nine

[Flatlander]

It's ought-nine! Now get off my lawn, you whippersnappers!

[Sedwick]

I say "two thousand nine", I intend to say "twenty-ten", followed by "twenty-eleven", and so on out for the rest of my life (assuming I don't live longer).

It's so old people can go "back in the thirties" without saying "back in the nineteen thirties".

To think references to the new "the twenties" are scarcely a decade away!

Another question--what will we call this decade as we look back on it? "The zeroes"? "The oughts"? "The (early) two-thousands"?

[Floyd]

Another question--what will we call this decade as we look back on it? "The zeroes"? "The oughts"? "The (early) two-thousands"?

the dawn of the new century/millenium, or the turn of the millenium.

[Krom]

The dawn of the millennium was 2001 not 2000 (because there was no year zero). And that is too long winded to use in the daily conversation of the masses anyway.

[Testiculese]

I think the word millennium is too big a word to use in the daily conversation of the masses.

[Duper]

I think the word millennium is too big a word to use in the daily conversation of the masses.

I like the to call it the "Warthog".

[Foil]

According to my grandparents, their parents called the years 1909 like \"nineteen-nine\", etc. They said others just called it \"ought-nine\".

Obviously, that doesn't translate well to 2009 (\"twenty-nine\"?), but what works well for me is something like the \"ought-nine\"... I just call it \"oh-nine\".

[Tunnelcat]

So I wonder when it switched over to nineteen 'oh' nine, for example? Everybody seems to say it that way now. All my grandparents have passed away, so I don't know anybody to ask that lived in that time period.

[VonVulcan]

I think the word millennium is too big a word to use in the daily conversation of the masses.

I like the to call it the "Warthog".

Puma.

[Gekko71]

Another question--what will we call this decade as we look back on it? "The zeroes"? "The oughts"? "The (early) two-thousands"?

The "Naughties" - what else?

[Octopus]

Over nine thousand?

[Duper]

Over nine thousand?

[Tunnelcat]

Another question--what will we call this decade as we look back on it? "The zeroes"? "The oughts"? "The (early) two-thousands"?

The twenty hundreds, the twenty oughts or maybe the twenty zips?

[Octopus]

\"Back in the twenty zips, pre teens would be the reason why twilight made money.\"
That works.