I teach English so I need to keep up to date on the latest linguistic trends
1 - Years after 2000 - it seems to me that Brits are still saying “Two thousand and six” but seem to split into either the “Two thousand and ten” camp or the “twenty ten” camp for the next decade.
What are Americans doing ? I guess you’re dropping the “and” anyway but is this year “two thousand six” or “twenty six” ? and how would you say 2012 ?
2 - Dates - eg 06.06.2006 Brits would either say “the sixth of June” or “June the sixth”. I’m sure on CNN I’ve heard people say “June six”, is this common? becoming more so ? or just international TV speak ? HOw would you say it ?
BTW, I directed my questions to Americans because that’s who my students often have contact with, but any other native speakers please feel free to comment.
I have no idea where this comes from, but for some reason, some of the people with whom I speak give dates like this: (June 16, 1946) “the sixth the sixteenth of forty six.”
It’s annoying as all get-out, because they’re also very soft-spoken and it’s harder to tell the numbers apart with all the ordinals in there. (Actually, everyone’s very soft-spoken these days… either my headset’s defective, or I’m starting to lose my hearing, I think.)
I bet by '10, we’re dropping the “two thousand (and)” as far too pretentious. We know what century it is, after all.
“two thousand six” or “oh-six” seem most used to me. I’ve never heard “twenty six” and I don’t think “two thousand and six” is all that common. For 2012 I would say “twenty twelve” (usualyl) or “two thousand twelve” (sometimes).
It would be “twenty oh-six,” if anything. I will very occassionally hear that usage, but normally it’s “two thousand six.” (I sometimes find myself saying “two thousand and six,” as well.) As for the other question, I will say month followed by the ordinal, e.g. July 11th.
There’s a newsreader on BBC Radio 4 and the Worldservice who says Twenty-oh-six. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone but her say the year that way.
But you’re right, ‘Two thousand and six’, is by far the most common way of saying the pre-2010 dates, and then it seems to split evenly between ‘two thousand and ten’ and ‘twenty-ten’ at least in London.
The weirdest and most difficult to understand thing is the way Americans tell time.
What the hell is ‘5 of 10’? Is it 5 past 10 or 5 to ten?
When asked my date of birth, I tend to rattle it off in this fashion, “eighteen six eighty”. To be honest, I can’t say for sure whether or not I do this with any other dates.
NZ/Australian here (who watched far too much British Television as a kid!)
I’d say June Sixth, Two Thousand and Sixteen.
However, just to be ultra-confusing, I’m just as likely to say “Sixth of June, Two Thousand and Sixteen”.
The American habit of omitting the “and” in numbers over 100 drives me mad, but I’m sure plenty of Americans can’t understand why the rest of us persist with using the “and” in numbers over 100. I’m definitely in the “Two Thousand and” camp for the years 2001-2099, FWIW.
100 years ago, Americans called the year “nineteen ought six.”
“Ought” seemed a hopelessly quaint way of saying “zero” at the dawn of the 21st century, so we have several ways of expressing the year, but “two thousand six” seems to be the most common in the U.S…
The CBS Sunday Morning program is on as I type, and host Charles Osgood says “twenty oh six.” He and CNN host Lou Dobbs are the only Americans I hear who regularly say the current year that way.
I have always thought the British way of labelling a particular date, in increasing increments of time; makes more sense than the American way of placing the month first. I was nuts for anything British in high school, and I used to date my school papers 27•3•74, for example. My teachers told me to stop, because it was “too confusing.” When I asked them why? did they think there was a 27th month?, they were nonplussed.
I’ve neve heard of YYYY/DD/MM, but I have seen YYYY/MM/DD, which does make sense (I’ll use it as a file-naming convention, because when you sort by name, it’ll put everything in date order. Also, the format YYYY/MM/DD is in common use in Hungary. You will see dates written as 2006 julius 11.)
Another American vote for “two thousand six” or just “oh six” as current common local usage.
I can see a real trend that back in, say, 2001, the former format was all but universal, and almost nobody said “oh one”. Nowadays it’s about 75% the latter, 25% the former, and by 2008 I’d bet almost nobody will be saying “two thousand eight” and almost everybody will be saying “oh 8.”
By the time 2010 rolls around, I expect it’ll just be “ten”, 'eleven", etc.
Dates written in mm/dd/yy or mm/dd/yyyy format are pronounced “June fourth, oh 7” with a slight pause for the implied comma between day and year. Regardless of whether the year is written /06 or /2006 people pronouce it as described above.
Even if the year is written, it’s often not pronounced at all if context makes clear which year it refers to. e.g. written “The Spring picnic will be 06/04/2006. Bring snacks.” will be pronounced as “The Spring picnic will be June fourth. Bring snacks.”
The US military & some other government agencies use a date format written as “17 Jun 06” or “17 Jun 2007” with the month written as either a 3-letter abbrevaition or occasionally spelled out fully. These are pronounced “seventeen june oh six” with no gaps or pauses (ie implied commas).
“Five of ten” would be five minutes TILL ten. Generally I don’t use that; though I am guilty of “ten till” for X:50, or “quarter till” for X:45. I also use “quarter after” for X:15.
As far as the date, I most often hear it as “July seventh of oh-six” or, in cases of future dates, “July seventh, twenty sixteen”.
FWIW, I’ve never heard anyone say “June six” outside of military contexts (or from veterans who are used to it because of said contexts.) It’d be June sixth, just as the poster said.
Regarding our American tendency to drop the “and” in our years…I think this is similar to the dropping of “aught.” It would, to me, sound archaic if someone gave my graduation year as “nineteen and ninety nine”. We hear “two thousand and six” enough that it’s not as funny to my ears, but I don’t think I’ll be using “two thousand and sixteen” or even “twenty and sixteen”. The older generation here in rural East Texas often begin stories with:
“It was nineteen and thirty-two…” so I suppose that’s why it sounds archaic to my ears.
Thanks guys, all useful stuff. You know Corrvin, when someone asks my my date of birth I use the "fourteenth of the second … "format but only because I know they’ll be typing in numbers and it saves them having to figure out what month february is
To keep the parallel construction, it would be “Nineteen hundred and ninety-nine.” That doesn’t sound particularly odd to my ears. Perhaps a little old timey, but not too much. If you do a Google search on “the year nineteen hundred and,” you’ll find plenty of results in an American English context.
