http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_160.html
Cecil was still panicking in May 2000, but it seems the problem around here was solved well before that class made it to graduation time. They were always “The Class of Two Thousand” as far as I knew. Three syllables ain’t bad. John Stephenson’s objection that said pronunciation would lied to unwieldy names for the subsequent years is groundless – they’re usually “The Class of Oh One” or whatever.
Powers &8^]
That’s too bad… I would have opted for "The Class of Nuthin’ "
I remember a certain candy company seized on the Roman numerals for 2000, and dubbed it “the year of M [&] M.”
Yeah, we seem to have settled into: “two thousand”, “oh one”, oh two", etc. Who cares if the first year doesn’t fit the pattern?
But do we have a name for the decade yet?
If it were me, I would have called the class of 2000 “The Aughtists”. But then, nobody asked me, which is probably a good thing.
My son graduated in 2000…I told him he was in the class of “Uh Oh”
Just today, though, I heard someone refer to this year as “Twenty oh eight.” I always say “Two thousand eight.”
I have no favorite term for the first decade of the 21st century. Then again, I’ve never had to use one.
I think that, come 2010 when television networks start airing retrospectives of the previous decade, they’ll be called the “two-thousands”; e.g. “Hey, remember the two-thousands? Indie rock and Dubya? Remember ditching your old televisions? Remember emo and hipster kids?” I have a gut feeling the 2010s will be remembered as the “two thousand tens”, the next decade the “two thousand twenties”, and so on, as to distinguish it from the 1910s and 1920s. Even the 2050s; the phrase “The Fifties” have become so solidly associated with 1950s white-bread culture – at least in the US – that it will be difficult to recycle the term for the 21st century.
I dunno, “Class of Two-thousand” kind of rolls off the tongue, “The two-thousands” not as much. I guess it’s the best option considering I don’t think most people will readily accept (or immediately understand), say, “naughty’s” “aughtys.” However given enough mileage a pop-culture powerhouse like VH1 or MTV could probably get it rolling. (VH1’s “I love the Naughty’s”?)
I remember agonizing over what we’d call the year 2000, etc, when they actually got here. But when they did, just about everybody I know, or heard (even on TV or the newspapers), civilians and academics and accountants and so on. called 2000 “Two-Thousand” when it was here, and now call them oh-eight (for example). I loved the sound of Aughty-aught, but except for folks trying to be clever, or to make a joke, everybody I’ve heard has just called them as described above. I guess I expected a miracle.
I’m not buying that. They referred to decades in the nineteenth century as the ‘twenties’ or the ‘nineties’. We didn’t have any problem recycling the term in this past century. One hundred years is just long enough that all of the people who have those correlations to specific decades are all dead by the time it wraps around.
When I graduated, we were definitely the class of Two Thousand, and the kids below us were the class of ‘Oh-One’. Funnily enough, when I refer to the current decade, I routinely do use ‘the aughts’, and it’s never caused an issue.
My stepdaughter was in the Class of 2000 at her HS. Her silver ring says "Notre Dame Academy Class Of 2000.
Just thankful that nobody is using “zero”
I had my fingers crossed for the “naughts” or the “aughts” or better yet, the “naughty naughts” but they haven’t gained any traction. Those words are so antiquated, I would bet that a significant portion of the population doesn’t know what they mean…
I remember that word when referring to shotgun shells - Double aught buckshot rounds, for instance.
Awhile back, shortly after the turn of the century, I mentioned to my father that it was rather annoying that people were hailing the graduating class of that spring as “the first class of the new millennium”, taking the glory away from true blue New Millennium 2001 graduates such as myself. He responded that the general population is easily distracted by shiny objects, beautiful models and round numbers, and bellyaching about it would do naught. This is what people do: simplify (if not dumb down) the words they use and even alter their understanding of concepts to serve their perceptions.
For the first ten graduating classes of the 2000s, the first year was almost always dubbed “class of two-thousand”, followed by “class of oh-X” for eight years so far. I have a hunch that the ninth year will be the same. There was no true standard for all 10 years that I’m aware of, even if there are many plausible candidates. Besides, the question has always been, “What will they call them?”, not “What SHOULD they call them?”. Reader input, as reproduced in both of that week’s Straight Dope Classics, went pretty far off course from the original question.
Keone Zirkle
Waialae-Kahala, HI-- currently Granada Hills, CA
I graduated in 2000 (well, it was supposed to be 1998, but that’s another story!) and the class was, as you said, “Class of 2000”.
Which reminds me of a question. Well, not really a question rather than a muse… I wonder when people are going to stop with the “Two-thousand blah blah”. I mean, we don’t say “one-thousand, nine hundred and one” or “nineteen hundred and one”, we say “nineteen oh one”
So I wonder if the years 2010, 2011, 2012, etc will be “two-thousand ten, two-thousand eleven, two-thousand twelve, etc” or if they’ll be (as, I feel, they should be) “twenty ten, twenty eleven, twenty twelve, etc” (or, at least, how the 1900s are said).
I hope not, that’s really a mouthful. If they must be distinguished, why not two-twenties, two-thirties, etc…
It was always Class of 2000. They were calling us that years before we graduated, so it’s not like this was up in the air until the last minute.
Shouldn’t that be “l ei d” for pronunciation ? Or is it as in the following word
“—wieldy”. It is mind-boggling and a miracle that English can be learned by a non-American. Especially since Americans themselves don’t speak or use it correctly. (Sorry, off track and subject.)