I say it Twenty-Ten, just as we did for Nineteen-Ten. The argument that “It will never be Twenty-Hundred” makes sense, except that, counting from 1910, it was never going to be “Nineteen Hundred” either. It just switched from “Nineteen Ninety-Nine” to “Two Thousand.”
I predict the same thing will happen after Twenty-Ninety-Nine. It’ll just switch to “Three Thousand”
Also, re: Referencing 2010: The Year We Made Contact. This would only serve as a steadfast example if the year 2010 was the followup to the year 2001, rather than there being eight intermediary years.
Seeing that English probably won’t even exist as we know it in 9099 or 9999, I don’t really see how your comment is relevant. It’s going to be twenty ten, and I’m pretty confident that history will bear me out.
Usually two-thousand-ten. If I was in America I’d probably say twenty-ten. It’s the same as with giving the time: ten-thirty in American, half-past-ten or half-ten in Scottish (can’t say about English ;)).
When an agent calls me asking whether I’m available and has problems understanding “I’m not available until two-thousand-ten,” I repeat it as “yes, two-thousand-ten, twenty-ten, whichever way you prefer but next year. And that’s at the earliest.” They seem to get it after a couple repetitions. I’ve noticed that agents with different accents will say it differently but I don’t make a point of asking agents “excuse me, where are you from? It’s for an informal language study I’m doing.”
Two thousand nine. Twenty-ten. Saying two thousand eight and two thousand nine just sounds better to me than twenty-oh-nine. Maybe something to do with the two zeros. It also seems kind of odd that someone would say they don’t understand what you’re talking about when you say twenty-ten.
I don’t remember something like 1066 being pronounced anything other than “ten-sixty-six” in history class in school. That sounds normal. One thousand sixty-six is just a number to me. Ten sixty six is a year. Ok, or an amount of money.
I bet eventually most people will switch to twenty-whatever for convenience. It’s faster to say. Will people be saying “two thousand” for the entire century? I doubt it.
I’ve been saying ‘two thousand and nine’ (although more often just ‘oh-nine’) but for some reason I can’t make myself say ‘two thousand and ten.’ I just automatically say ‘twenty-ten.’ To me saying ‘two thousand and ten’ is like saying ‘nineteen hundred and ninety eight,’ even though I cheerfully say ‘two thousand and nine.’
