I largely agree (which is why I included that ‘math-teaching circles’ qualification, as the only actual mathematician I ever hung out with was sort of an odd duck and not anyone on whom to base a generalization).
Teachers get caught up in promoting these little “laws” sometimes. They don’t always have a sound basis. 
Yeah, well you leave out apostrophes and do all sorts of screwy things treating non-collective nouns as if they’re collective, so there! 
I would be interested to know when popular speech moves from one form to another in the previous millennium. Example, “twelve hundred sixty” versus “twelve sixty”.
This linguistic change seems that it would only occur once a millennium, some time after the novelty of a new millennium has worn off.
The Teens sounds fine and it’s what I’ve always heard. I’m pretty sure that’s what they use in the 1910s as well. I’ve heard, but can’t really confirm the 1900s were called the Aughts. Certainly a specific year was often referred to as aught eight – at least in things I’ve read; I’m only OldGuy not AncientGuy.
I’ve been using the “twenty-oh-three” or “twenty-fourteen” pronunciation since about 2003. I did enjoy saying “two thousand and one” and “two thousand two” when they were current.
I can’t now say that I have any awareness of others or public speakers using the “two thousand [and] fourteen” form, other than perhaps pontificating politicians when in their extra-pedantic ponderous oration mode. What I think I recall hearing most from public speakers is also the “twenty-whatever” format.
I wonder when we’ll start dropping the “twenty” part in casual conversation? I don’t tend to say things like “Back in twelve I bought a new TV”. I’d say “Back in twenty twelve I bought a new TV”.
Although I do describe my car as an “oh-eight” model. The closer I look at my own speech, the less consistent it seems.
Good points, both.
When did people start saying “back in twelve” (say) to refer to 1912? Or did they ever do so? For some reason, I get the feeling that this construction didn’t get going until people started referring to 1920 and later years – from a perspective of around 1925 (or later). Maybe a Google Ngram search would help answer this question, but it might be difficult to separate year references from other numbers.
For a quick and easy first data point (sure to be superseded) on this related question,* I submit the Bryan Adams song “Summer of '69,” released in 1984.
Oh, wait, there’s The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” which refers up the “summer of '65”’ – meaning 1865, but the song was written around 1968, so don’t take that as necessarily an accurate portrayal of how people spoke circa 1880.
Hmmmm… Maybe it’s a Canadian thing. 
(Kidding – I know that Levon Helm was from the United Statesian faction within The Band).
*which might deserve its own thread
“Back in '12” shows up in this 1942 newspaper headline. (Page image requires a subscription, but it’s in the OCR text.)
Just saw a Rooms-To-Go (furniture outlet) television commercial last night that advertised “no interest until two-thousand twenty”.
Can’t find it on Youtube, but there are Ashley Furniture commercials on YT that advertise no interest until 2020. Can’t listen at work to confirm pronunciation, though.
Of course you wouldn’t.
You’d say zweitausendachtzehn. Duh!
Since this is GQ, I should contribute something non-stupid: I think people tend to use the “two thousand” construction because it sounds weightier. *In the year . . . two thousand fourteen . . . alien mutant changelings walk the earth . . . * And as for German, it’s naturally a weightier language that noone ever accused of brevity to my knowledge.
I have seem people, use both. Two thousand and… is more common with more formal names, like the Two Thousand and Fourteen FIFA World Cup.
That’s true. Also, it seems to show up on local news (here, anyway) a lot–as if it’s a fashion, and people don’t want to stand out by using a form different from the ‘norm.’ Not that I believe most people consciously think it out, really.
There’s a lot of psychological and sociological underpinnings to these speech patterns (to be Captain Obvious about it).
I think one thing affecting pronunciation whether we are thinking of the year as a quantity or as a “numerical label”. Consider house numbers: Do you tell people you live at “forty-three, twenty-five Main Street”, or “four thousand, three hundred, twenty-five Main Street”? The latter sounds silly - not just because it’s so long but because it seems like you’re saying it’s the 4325th house on the street. The house number is not a quantity - it doesn’t say there are four thousand of anything - it’s just a label. Similarly, I drive a Mazda three-sixty, not a Mazda three-hundred-and-sixty, because it’s not three hundred and sixty of anything. To me, 2014 is just the label for the current year. Sure it’s the two thousand and fourteenth year of the Common Era, but I don’t really think of it that way.
Excellent point. I think you’ve nailed it – this is why we tend to avoid the “thousand” stuff with year names, though there are exceptions.
Yes, EdwardLost has offered a very plausible reason for the inconsistencies we hear in the ways numbers are pronounced (the distinction between numbers that name quantities and numbers that are labels).
I wonder if such a distinction is found in most languages?
I say twenty-fourteen. I didn’t realize it was so uncommon.
What is the normal way to refer to years in the 11th century? Do we typically say ‘one-thousand fourteen’ or ‘ten fourteen’? To me, using ten sounds odd, and I imagine using twenty sounds odd to many people.
However I do agree with the poster who said we’ll enjoy the gimmick of saying ‘twenty twenty’, and that’s when most people will switch.
Battle of Clontarf, 1014. As it’s seen as something of a turning point in Irish history and as we are currently marking the 1000th anniversary, it is frequently discussed at present. And it’s always “ten-fourteen”, as it has been since my childhood.
Likewise, the Battle of Hastings was fought, as every British schoolchild knows, in “ten-sixty-six”. The definitive study of the event, and of its signficance in British and world history, is the classic work 1066 and All That, invariably voiced as “Ten-sixty-six and All That”.
So, “ten-” for years in the eleventh century. Definitely not “one thousand-”.
I have never in my entire life heard a person read a number written in decimal form as “… and (a fraction.)” Not an American, not anyone else. Absolutely without exception everyone I’ve ever met would read “203.7” as “two hundred and three point seven” or “two hundred three point seven” or quite conceivably “two-oh-three point seven.”
As to the OP, I refer to this year as “Twenty fourteen,” usually. Or maybe sometimes “two thousand fourteen” but usually “twenty fourteen.” I hear both.