Finally, we are identifying the century correctly!

[paulwalker]

I started talking about this in the late 90’s. The 2000’s should be identified correctly. As example, 20-15, not 2 thousand 15. It is really sad that it has taken 15 years, but now most identify the date correctly. Two thousand does not make sense in a historical meaning. Look at history. 1015 is known as 10-fifteen, not 10 thousand fifteen. OK, I admit this is somewhat anal, but I think we finally have the majority getting it right. OK, I’m done with this rant here on April 13, twenty-fifteen.

[jr_tech]

So what is your preference for say, 2005?

“twenty-five” is just 25.
“twenty-oh five” sounds awkward.
“twenty-aught five” sounds even worse.
I gotta go with “two thousand five”

I agree from 2010 up, however.

[paulwalker]

Yeah, “twenty-oh-five” sounds awkward, but it was the correct way to spell it out, both then and today, IMO. If I heard someone say 2 thousand five today, I would cringe. But again I am anal in this regard.

[jr_tech]

🙂

I guess that I have always wondered about eleven and twelve….
21 is “twenty-one”, 22 is “twenty-two”…..
31 is “thirty-one”, 32 is “thirty-two”…..

but “eleven” and “twelve” ?? seems like they should be something like “oneteen” and “twoteen” to better match “thirteen” “fourteen”….. whose idea was that anyway?

[semoochie]

I can’t believe I did this: According to Wikipedia(and I know of no finer source), “eleven” is Germanic for “one left over” and “twelve” for “two left over” presumably after you remove “ten”.

[Andy Brown]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900s_(decade)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_(decade)

[edselehr]

I just can’t believe we’re FIFTEEN YEARS into the 21st century. It really doesn’t seem that long ago to me when I felt the wonder of knowing that I would some day live beyond the year 2000! And that I’ll be growing old in that century! Amazing!

And so, here I am. Meh.

[Amus]

From Andy’s link;

I really like the British/Australian term for 2000-2009.

“the noughties”

[Alfredo_T]

Thirty-four years ago, when I was learning English, I found the construct of expressing four-digit years as pairs of two-digit numbers to be weird. This is because in Spanish, the year 1981 is said in a longform way that translates into “one thousand nine hundred eighty-one.” At least, this is how I was taught to say four-digit numbers by my parents and teachers.

I have noticed that in more contemporary commercial contexts, Spanish speakers do say four-digit numbers in the English shorthand way. For example, La Grande was “15-20 AM” and later “11-50 AM.” However, I don’t know whether this would be acceptable in a formal or academic context (for example, if somebody were presenting an engineering paper on the design of an diplexed antenna system for 1150 kHz and 1520 kHz).

[Author]

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