So, is it Two Thousand Ten or Twenty Ten?

Now that its the New Year, I’m wondering if people are saying Two Thousand Ten or Two Thousand and Ten or Twenty Ten or any other variation. I looked it up on line and I found these two articles (among a slew of them actually) of how to properly say the new year and the rest of the century’s years.

This one is from Tonic:

Do You Know How to Say ‘2010’ Correctly?

By Marc Hertz | Thursday, December 31, 2009 7:10 PM ET

2010.jpg

It’s coming at midnight, whether you like it or not. The year 2010. But here’s the question: When you’re at a party, talking with people about all the great and noble things you’ll be doing in the coming year, what will you call it? Do you say “Two thousand and ten”? How about “Two thousand ten”? Perhaps “Two oh ten”? The answer is “no,” “no” and most definitely “no,” if the Web site twentynot2000.com has anything to say about it.

In fact, they have a lot to say about “Twenty Ten” (and, yes, that’s the correct way), so I’ll let them explain:

“Say the year ‘1810’ out loud. Now say the year ‘1999’ out loud. See a pattern? It’s been easier, faster, and shorter to say years this way for every decade (except for the one that just ended) instead of saying the number the long way. However, many people are carrying the way they said years from last decade over to this decade as a bad habit. If we don’t fix this now, we’ll be stuck saying years the long way for the next 89 years. Don’t let that happen!”

As you can tell, the people at this Web site are rather passionate about this distinction. And they’ve got others joining the cause as well, with more than 21,000 fans on Facebook and that page was founded just seven days ago. Dare I say this is an actual movement.

So, run, don’t walk, and join the movement. Do it or future generations will suffer!

 Photo courtesy of Qi-Guang, via Flickr

 This one is from Star Tribune:

Fixit: How do you say 2010, and why? Start practicing

How did you read that just now? Was it “two-thousand-ten,” or “twenty-ten?”

By KAREN YOUSO, Star Tribune

Last update: December 26, 2009 – 10:05 PM

In just five days it’ll be 2010.

How did you read that just now? Was it “two-thousand-ten,” or “twenty-ten?”

If it wasn’t “twenty-ten,” better start practicing. After nine years of the clunky “two-thousand-and-the-number,” we can now safely drop the thousand and simply say “twenty-ten.” Just as 1990 was “nineteen-ninety,” we can call 2010 “twenty-ten.”

So why weren’t we doing the “twenty something” for the past nine years?

Maybe it’s because twenty-one for 2001, twenty-two for 2002 and so on wasn’t quite clear; the zero needed to be acknowledged. At the turn of the last century, the word “aught” was used for zero as in “nineteen-aught-one” (1901). We ought to have used aught, but we didn’t.

I’ll be saying Twenty Ten…how about you?

–Cos

5 thoughts on “So, is it Two Thousand Ten or Twenty Ten?

  1. keurig-b60.info says:

    Well, finally a post that puts a smile on my face….good input and I hope you can keep the level of upcoming post high.

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