# Happy 2008! Now, um, what are we calling this decade? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 1, 2008, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-2008-now-um-what-are-we-calling-this-decade/431933 "2008-01-01T22:46:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-2008-now-um-what-are-we-calling-this-decade/431933/21 "2008-01-02T06:31:11Z")
The Aristocrats! So far I just call it “this decade.” In a few years I’ll refer to it as “last decade.” By the time 2020 rolls around hopefully I wont have to refer to it often and the rest of you will have chosen something. Maybe I’ll say stuff like “Back around 2008.” ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-2008-now-um-what-are-we-calling-this-decade/431933/22 "2008-01-02T11:08:50Z")
[QUOTE=DaveRaver] I just thought I’d get an update whether we have all decided what to call this decade. It’s almost over, you know. [/QUOTE] I will assume we are talking about the decade which began 1 Jan 2000 and ends 31 Dec 2009. I’m delighted to have read this far and not have some twit pretend the decade start and finish times should be constrained by some confused monk who screwed up the first one. There is no reasonable nickname other than the “O’s” which should be pronounced like the letter even though it refers to the number zero. It is short and descriptive. It is also too stupid to be widely accepted. The thing about nicknames is that you can’t decide on them really…they just sort of show up and catch on. The “Final Decade” may also be descriptive, given a number of TEOTWAWKI predictions, but that may be too pessimistic. On this Board, if we all decide on anything, the end of the world will have indeed come. ---
**Author:** ![Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-2008-now-um-what-are-we-calling-this-decade/431933/23 "2008-01-02T11:22:34Z")
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant] I will assume we are talking about the decade which began 1 Jan 2000 and ends 31 Dec 2009. I’m delighted to have read this far and not have some twit pretend the decade start and finish times should be constrained by some confused monk who screwed up the first one. [/QUOTE] That’s because that argument doesn’t hold for decades. It would be silly to say, for example, that 1990 isn’t part of the 1990’s. If we called it the “200th Decade”, the way we say the “20th Century”, the silly argument over start/finish times would hold - but we don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-2008-now-um-what-are-we-calling-this-decade/431933/24 "2008-01-02T12:21:54Z")
I call it the Aughts. ---
**Author:** ![Will\_Repair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a698b9/32.png) [@Will\_Repair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Will_Repair)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-2008-now-um-what-are-we-calling-this-decade/431933/25 "2008-01-02T12:43:49Z")
The Thomasin Franken Decade. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-2008-now-um-what-are-we-calling-this-decade/431933/26 "2008-01-02T14:22:44Z")
We’re not really calling them anything now. In the future, it’ll probably be referred to as “the first decade of the millennium” or “the first decade of the 21st century”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-2008-now-um-what-are-we-calling-this-decade/431933.md?page=1)