I agree, but we can’t count tens until we get to 10, and, for the first decade, we count ones. “Zeros” would be fine with me, but I don’t like it linguistically because moving numbers are not zeros. But I have heard the older generation use phrases such as, “I remember back in ought-eight when. . . .”
I will accept the “oughts” before I can abide the “double-oughts.”
double- Naught with an “n”, say it with me “dooouuublllle-naaauuuuug…!”
(sound of a large object striking Brian in the mouth)
Say, when exactly does your medication kick in? 
I just looked it up, thanks. But who ever heard anyone say, “I remember back in naught-eight when. . . .”? Perhaps we’ve been spelling “ought” when we mean “aught,” which I would assume derives from “naught.”
Just don’t name the decade the “naughts.” (Nots? Knots?) I’ll not have “naught”! Or will we have the “haves and the have-naughts”?
I’m sticking with the “ones,” goofy sound and all. We’re not counting tens yet, and we’re still not counting zeros, though we may be Counting Crows.
Okay, it’s been a long week–time to sign off and let my brain (or what’s left of it) do other things. Happy holidays to you all!
Having read everything on this thread, my $.02 (aught-two?) is that (a) no one has successfully rebutted happyboy, and (b) calling this decade “the ones” won’t happen, regardless of its logic and correctness. “Double naughts” is downright contrived, and goes completely senseless in the year 2010 (are we supposed to call that next decade “the oh-ones”?). The statement that we don’t call the next decade the tens is off by one letter e; the teens we do call them. The thirties are not called the thirties because it sounds cool–it’s because it’s mathematically sensible. (Speaking of which, the mathematically sensible people did not lose the argument about when the millennium began. Even most of those teeming millions for whom the year 2000 was a 365-day hangover punctuated by fits of backpedaling on their overblown “Y2K” hysteria now admit that the millennium had no choice but to actually begin on Jan. 1, 2001, since there was no year zero. The first day of January is the 1st (“first”), just as the first year of any century is '01.)
One could make the case that all this is arbitrary and pointless anyway, for when did time truly begin? We go back and start counting these 2000-odd years at a point in time when a decidedly influential person (Jesus of Nazareth) was supposedly born, who in fact was not born then. As close as modern-day Bible scholars can tell, he wasn’t born in December or even in winter, and our calendars are off by a number of YEARS from when the actual year A.D. 1 occurred.
The mootness is palpable. So it doesn’t really matter what one calls this decade (or any other for that matter)…we just know it won’t be “the ones”.
It seems to me that a lot of people are simply missing the point of why decades are given their names.
The eighteenth century is sometimes called the “seventeen-hundreds” because the years in it (1st and last years notwithstanding) are all called seventeen hundred and … .
The sixties are so called because the years in them were sixty-…
We names periods of history after words which appear in all years in that period.
We should therefore look at the names for the years in this decade.
The most common name for this year is “two thousand and two”
so we could call them the “Two-thousand-ands”. Unfortunately this is too long to catch on, and “ands” is just silly.
Other possibilities:
“Twenty-ohs” as in “twenty-oh-seven”
“Ohs” same reason
Could work. My favourite is “Twenty-ohs”.
But the main point is that calling the decade the naughts or naughties is simply to draw a false analogy by thinking that decades are usually named after the first year in the decade. Not True.
The previous poster makes alot of sense. Maybe, since I guess the millenium DID start in 2001, (I must have been mistaken, I thought all those huge celebrations took place at midnight 31 Dec 1999, silly me.)we should just call these years the HAL-ies after the most famous charactor from “2001 a Space Oddessy”
I have to take issue with this.
I know English speaking people on the west of the Atlantic say two thousand two and English speaking people on the east of the Atlantic say two thousand and two.
As far as I know that is just convention, as per the difference in the way dates are written. Neither naming convention is any more correct than the other.
The “and” does not in any way whatsoever denote a decimal point because there is no decimal point inherant in the date.
2002 is is two thousand years plus two more years
It can not be written not 200.2: two hundred years and two tenths of a year
No way, no how.
Curly Chick:
2002 is written, “two thousand two,” even though many (or most) people–even in America–say, “two thousand and two.” I was just clarifying what is technically correct. If you wrote a cheque for $115.75, would you write, “One hundred AND fifteen AND 75/100 (dollars)”? No. You can only have one “and” in a number, and I learned in grade school how to write the language of numbers. Its proof is in the commonly used method of check-writing.
Mind you, I am merely being technical, not practical. Technically, “two thousand and two” does not give quite enough information–we would need to know “two whats?” “Two thousand and two tenths” would be “2000.2,” and “two thousand and two hundredths” would be “2000.02.” Everybody using common speech understands “two thousand and two” to mean the number 2002; I was merely pointing out what is linguistically proper.
Paddle:
Outstanding. “Twenty-ohs” has a wonderful ring to it, though I suspect our friend BMalion would prefer “twenty-naughts,” which works equally well. The early twentieth century becomes the “nineteen-ohs,” but we still don’t have a word for that first decade of life. Oh well.
Unique to the English language, as far as I know: We commonly use the word for the letter “O” (“oh”) as a shorter version of the number “0,” pronounced “zero.” English wants to shorten words to as few syllables as possible: the Greek-rooted “automobile” becomes “car,” etc. (too many examples to list, but think of all the one-syllable words we have for common things: desk, chair, book, lamp, face, hair, door, house, dog, cat, horse, cow, coat, hat, run, walk, all the personal pronouns, etc.). You’ll notice that, when an appliance or electronic gadget comes with instructions in mulitiple languages, the one that takes the least room on the page is almost inevitably English.
I asked a Spanish teacher once if the Spanish language ever used “oh” for “zero,” and he looked at me with stunned bewilderment, as though the question didn’t even make sense. And it doesn’t, really–but we do it all the time in English. My boyhood phone number ended in “0074,” and I always said, “oh-oh-seven-four.” Even James Bond is called, “double-oh-seven.” “Double-zero-seven,” would be more correct, but sounds ridiculous to our ears. “Double-naught-seven” is fine too, but is not common in America.
And, FINALLY (thank goodness), I emailed this decade question to Richard Lederer, the American logophile and author of “Anguished English” and other books regarding our delightful language. His simple reply:
“Many observers, including me, have noted that there is no name for the decade we’re in – nor for the next one.”
So, ha ha on us all! But I’ve had a great time in this thread. Call it what you will. I think I like, “twenty-ohs.” If it turns out to be a happy decade, maybe we can refer to it as the “cheery-ohs”. . . .
happyboy
In my reply to your original post, I said that you were wrong to say that the and in 2002 represents a decimal place.
You were wrong.
Ravelling on about the way a cheque is written does not make you any more correct.
Howzabout for the date of 23 January 2003 we just say “Star-date two-three-zero-one-two-zero-zero-three” ? any takers? no? dang.
In the UK numbers are always written with an ‘and’ between the hundreds column and and the tens column.
We say One Hundred and Two, Two Hundred and Twenty Three, Three Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Seven, … and Two Thousand and Two.
This is the case for all numbers.
The current year is almost always called Two Thousand and Two, but years prior to 2000 are refered to in the form: Nineteen Eighty Four.
To be honest I’m slightly offended to hear you claim that your method is ‘linguistically proper’ or ‘technically correct’. We may do things differently on this side of the Atlantic, but surely our standard method is at least as valid as yours.
Thanks! I’m not convinced that “twenty-naughts” does work as well since I’ve never heard anyone talk about Twenty-Naught-Two.
Interesting point. I’d not really thought about it before. I guess saying zero sounds just too … regimented or formal or something?
Sorry, never meant to offend. :smack: I was not aware of the differences. We leave out the “and”; we also hyphenate the numbers between 21 and 99, and we place a comma after the words “thousand,” “million,” and so on. The examples you gave would be written in the US as “one hundred two; two hundred twenty-three; three thousand, four hundred fifty-seven; … and two thousand, two” (correction from previous reply). I think the commas were intended to mimic their placement in the numerical writing of numbers: 3,457.
Yes, I agree that your standard method is as valid as ours; I was unaware of the different standard. Do you use two “ands” in cheque-writing?
I think that some countries in Europe switch the placement of the comma and period in large numbers, yes? Our “2,987,345.67” would be “2.987.345,67”–is that right? Germany, Italy? I have seen it in paperwork for the fine LGB toy trains from Germany. Frankly, I prefer our method because it jibes with the language. A comma indicates a pause and continuation of the sentence, while a period indicates the end. In the same way, a comma in a number indicates some kind of thousand (a million being a thousand thousand) and continuation, while a decimal (period) indicates the end of the whole number and the beginning of the fraction.
Please be aware that, despite our linguistic differences, there are people on this side of the Atlantic who still admire the “King’s English.” Shakespeare still represents the pinnacle of English writing, and the beauty of the King James Bible is held in high esteem by many.
Nice to talk with a chap from Merry Olde! Speaking of that, I believe we say, “Merry Christmas” in America because of Dickins’ “A Christmas Carol” (my all-time favorite Christmas story). We in America rarely use the word “merry” except in conjunction with the word Christmas–we usually say, “happy”: Happy Valentine’s Day, Happy Halloween, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy New Year. But I think “merry” is a superior word for Christmas and conveys a sense of joy that “happy” does not.
A very “Merry Christmas” to you all!
I didn’t say that the “and” in 2002 represents a decimal place; I said that we shouldn’t use the word “and” when writing or saying the number 2,002 (or the year 2002) because it represents a decimal–the implication being that, since there’s no decimal in 2002, there should be no “and.” This has since been cleared up nicely by Paddle and responded to in my previous post.
No problem!
I believe the correct way to write cheques in the UK (the way I use, anyway) is to write the number of pounds in words and the pennys in figures, e.g. “One Hundred and Twenty Seven Pounds 50”
Anyway don’t you write ‘checks’ in the US, rather than ‘cheques’?
I know in some countries, eg France, a comma is used where we would use a decimal point. Not sure about the ‘period’ used where we have a comma though. I’m sure someone will know.
The word ‘merry’ isn’t really used other than at Christmas over here either. The only other time it is commonly used is to mean inebriated.
Paddle.
hyjyljyj said:
I think Chronos did nicely when he said:
But Paddle’s contribution is worth considering.
Perhaps, but only children in arithmetic class say “ones”. “Units” would be better.
I’m suprised that no one has mentioned “twokay” yet, as in the decade 2k-2k9. Currently it’s 2k2, soon to be 2k3.
It’s a decidedly geeky name for a decade, but I have seen that notation being used.
Because “2k” isn’t the decade, it’s the mellennium.
{tired newbie ranting absent-mindedly}
First of all, the side debate on “Two Thousand And Two”… math wise, incorrect. Linguistically, depends on where you’re from. Living in the sick & sad world of digits, base 10, and all that, and represents a decimal. Or multiplication. Or addition. Its all contextual. Linguistically, it is regionally inserted - in English and other languages - the “y/i” in romantic languages, things like “na” (not strictly “and”, but it serves the same use) in Russian, etc etc. Twenty and one being quite common on this planet, but somehow not being mistaken for 20.1 or 20*1. I’m not a linguistic expert in English, but I would venture to bet that it was simply dropped from the language as it evolved.
To be slightly more confusing, 1999 wasn’t the 99th year of the 20th century - it was the 100th year of the 20th century, but the 1999th year since AD (I still find it a ridiculous date measuring system), and this is the 3rd year of this century. So if you’re being terribly math-headed about it, “two thousand two” can’t be abbreviated to “two” or “oh two” anyway, since (being technical, of course) you would basically be counting the number of years in the century (“Class of 99” is like saying “Class of the 99th year of this century” much like saying “45 after”… only it is the 100th year of… blah, nevermind, too technical). Like most things, though, none of that matters, since the common person will look at you like you’re an idiot, blink, and proceed on with the popular methods of dating. Its like why “f” (vs. “ph”) is considered improper in English for a greek root when Green doesn’t have “h” but has “f”. It just is. (I’m sure there is some big explanation about the evolution of English I’m sure I’d be fascinated in, since I love understanding exactly WHY this language makes absolutely no sense)
As for what to call this decade… well, you could go on about that forever. I bet people will debate “teens” versus “tens” for decades to come. But most people will go with what is most comfortable. When I’m writing a paper referring to events in 1902-1907, I generally BS something like “the early years of the twentieth century”… or “at the turn of”… or “the first decade of” or “just before everyone became obsessed with killing each other”. I suppose I’d call this the “Two Thousands”, which makes absolutely no sense math-wise, and would lead to general confusion in a broad timeline scale, but for saying “The music of the Eighties, Nineties, and Two Thousands”, it works.
What COULD it be called? Other than the suggestions brought up here, I’m surprised no one has been fancy and brought up a prime- or deca- (or both) prefixed term yet.
Anyway, it is something that would be more fittingly termed “What do you bet this decade will be referred to” than any proper choice.
“Twenty and one being quite common on this planet, but somehow not being mistaken for 20.1 or 20*1.”
I should add a bit, I think… “Twenthy dollars and one cent” uses different units with and connecting them, just like twenty and 1/10th or twenty and .1 do. “Two thousand and one year” makes sense to me, like “One thousand nine hundred and ninety nine” makes sense, whereas “Two thousand one” doesn’t quite roll off the tongue (like “pyatnadtsyat” versus “pyatdtsyat”). Really, it is a matter of condensing words- five and ten, fiveten, fifteen. Hell, you can rightly say “Nineteen hundred and fourty two” or more familiarly, “fourteen hundred and ninety two”
I dunno, I’m tired, someone beat some ignorance out of me.