# How should 2011 be pronounced?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 21, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122 "2011-02-21T16:01:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@DaveRaver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaveRaver)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/1 "2011-02-21T16:01:46Z")
I’ve heard it pronounced both ways, but which way do you prefer?
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### Author:  [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/2 "2011-02-21T16:05:57Z")
We call it nineteen eleven and not one thousand nine hundred eleven, so let’s continue.
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### Author:  [@ColdPhoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdPhoenix)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/3 "2011-02-21T16:09:01Z")
Definitely twenty eleven, it is quicker and easier.
For 1066 do you say “ten sixty-six” or “one thousand and sixty six”? Same principal applies.
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### Author:  [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/4 "2011-02-21T16:30:55Z")
Twenty-eleven just sounds right.
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### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/5 "2011-02-21T16:34:21Z")
I’m pretty sure I say “two thousand _and_ eleven.”
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### Author:  [@Hedda\_Rosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hedda_Rosa)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/6 "2011-02-21T16:36:09Z")
I say twenty eleven. Anything else sounds pedantic.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/7 "2011-02-21T18:22:29Z")
They both sound awkward to me, so I just say “This year.” Next year I’ll say “Last year.”
By the time it drifts so far into the past that I can’t get away with that any more, I’ll be an old coot, and I can say “Back in 'ought eleven.”
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### Author:  [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/8 "2011-02-21T18:59:55Z")
eleventy
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/9 "2011-02-21T19:04:42Z")
twenty eleven
Anyone who says differently is probably a communist plant.
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### Author:  [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/10 "2011-02-21T19:41:20Z")
Neither.
“Two thousand and eleven”.
The year 2000 was “two thousand”, not “twenty-oh-oh”, and it followed from that.
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### Author:  [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/11 "2011-02-21T19:43:00Z")
I said “two thousand eleven” and will feel that “two thousand whatever” will work until “2020” and upwards. In the previous decade I felt that “oh-whatever” was good until I heard a redio guy say “oh-oh” for the 2000 year. That just sounded weird. I don’t cringe with the “twenty eleven” version, but just prefer the “two thousand eleven.” Being able to say either is better than the alternative!
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### Author:  [@Red\_Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Skeezix)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/12 "2011-02-21T19:48:47Z")
There is a common convention when spelling out numbers that the ‘and’ signifies fractional bits goes to right of the decimal. When people say “two thousand and eleven” that translates to 2000.11. But i’m a strict twenty eleven person. Also when reading out long numbers I tend to group by two so: 4567345612891006 would be read “forty five sixty seven thirty four fifty six twelve eighty nine ten oh six”.
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### Author:  [@TravisFromOR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TravisFromOR)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/13 "2011-02-21T19:58:11Z")
Twenty-eleven. Beforehand, I said, “Twenty-ten” and “Twenty-oh-nine.”
(Although in 2010, I’d catch myself saying, “twenty-oh-ten,” which is a different year entirely.
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/14 "2011-02-21T20:41:32Z")
“Nine-eleven plus eleventy-zero”. That way, I get my Super-Patriotic 9/11 reference™ in.
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### Author:  [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/15 "2011-02-21T21:07:56Z")
I hear it in the complaining voice of a tall servant gentleman from an old Shirley Temple movie “She got twenty-lebbum jobs for me, and wan 'em all done right now!”
So: Other - Twenty-lebbum.
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### Author:  [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/16 "2011-02-21T21:15:51Z")
I want twenty-eleven. I am in favor of twenty-eleven. However, I cannot make myself _say_ twenty-eleven. So I’m always saying two-thousand and eleven, even though it’s a mouthful.
I predict everyone will completely switch by 2013, which is when we get two syllables after the 20 and everyone will be thoroughly sick of taking 10 minutes to give the date.
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### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/17 "2011-02-21T21:24:26Z")
“In the year two thousand five hundred and twenty-five, if man is still alive…”
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### Author:  [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/18 "2011-02-21T21:31:18Z")
I had no idea this was even an issue. I think I say two thousand eleven, but apparently I should be throwing an “and” in there. Twenty eleven doesn’t sound right to my ears.
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### Author:  [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/19 "2011-02-21T21:37:22Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#):
>
> I predict everyone will completely switch by 2013, which is when we get two syllables after the 20 and everyone will be thoroughly sick of taking 10 minutes to give the date.
And if that doesn’t take, then definitely by 2077.
The current year is twenty-eleven.
Like everybody else, I said “two thousand” in 2000, but I was in the minority a year later with “twenty-oh-one.” I’ve continued with the “twenty-_xx_” format and that now seems to be the more widely accepted usage. I’m a pioneer! 😃
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### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-2011-be-pronounced/572122/20 "2011-02-21T21:40:58Z")
“Nineteen one hundred eleven.”
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