dlv:
The years 1971-1979 were known as “the seventies”.
The years 1981-1989 were known as “the eighties”.
The years 1991-1999 were known as “the nineties”.
How 'bout 1970, 1980, and 1990 specifically?
I looked in the mirror today/My eyes just didn’t seem so bright
I’ve lost a few more hairs/I think I’m going bald - Rush
I hate to say it, because I think the hype over the programming issue regarding DOS based systems having trouble with the year '00 is way overdone, but the prevalence of ‘Y2K’ probably means that the years will be known as the 2K’s (as in Y2K, 2K1, etc.)
The bigger question is why does this concern anyone? Do we have to come up with a name at all? Will there be worldwide riots if we don’t? Will proponents of “the oughts” have a flamewar to the death for those who say “the zeros”?
Why on Earth does this matter to anyone?
“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx
I like the nada’s, as suggested earlier, or the oughties. But how 'bout this related question? I assume we will say two-thousand, two-thousand-one, etc.
Will we at some point switch over to saying twenty- and then the year? If so, when? It seems like it fits after 2010. You would go from saying two-thousand-ten to twenty-eleven, twenty-twelve, etc.
I heard Authur Clarke used get very upset whenever he heard the title of his scifi book 2010* (and the movie based on it) mispronounced as “twenty-ten”.
Kilgore – yes, but this question has appeared several times, always asked with great urgency, as though if we don’t have a name for it, we can’t go on.
Eventually, there will be a name for it. Or not. But why should anyone care?
“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx
i ran into this site a while ago that lists a few possibilities.
if you go there, you can vote on the one that you like best, or put in your own. not that this vote really goes to anything, but it’s still kind of fun to see what they’ve come up with.