Pronouncing the new year
- Tunnelcat
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Pronouncing the new year
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?
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?
- Testiculese
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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.
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.
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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.
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- Tunnelcat
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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.
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Re:
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).
Another question--what will we call this decade as we look back on it? "The zeroes"? "The oughts"? "The (early) two-thousands"?
To think references to the new "the twenties" are scarcely a decade away!Dakatsu wrote:It's so old people can go "back in the thirties" without saying "back in the nineteen thirties".
Another question--what will we call this decade as we look back on it? "The zeroes"? "The oughts"? "The (early) two-thousands"?
Re:
the dawn of the new century/millenium, or the turn of the millenium.Sedwick wrote:Another question--what will we call this decade as we look back on it? "The zeroes"? "The oughts"? "The (early) two-thousands"?
- Testiculese
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I like the to call it the "Warthog".Testiculese wrote:I think the word millennium is too big a word to use in the daily conversation of the masses.
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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\".
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\".
Re:
The "Naughties" - what else?Sedwick wrote:Another question--what will we call this decade as we look back on it? "The zeroes"? "The oughts"? "The (early) two-thousands"?
Re:
Octopus wrote:Over nine thousand?
- Tunnelcat
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Re:
The twenty hundreds, the twenty oughts or maybe the twenty zips?Sedwick wrote:Another question--what will we call this decade as we look back on it? "The zeroes"? "The oughts"? "The (early) two-thousands"?