It’s now the first decade of the 21st Century. So what is the commonly used name to call this decade? (Notice I say “commonly used” name, as opposed to technical name, etc.)
So far it appears there is no name for this decade.
In light of recent events like 9/11, the low speed stock market crash, and the “election” George W Bush:
the Oh Ohs
I call it “the decade of the repeated question”.
Serious answer: “the millennium”, that’s my guess as to how people will refer to it, when they need to i.e. in the future. At the moment, there’s no pressing need for a name, hence no name.
I like the name “The Naughties” (Noughties) etc
but I am a geek…
A few relevant Cecil columns:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_160.html
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_161.html
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_263b.html
This question has been done to death on this site, both by Cecil and here in General Questions.
Well, the year 2007 will be known as the Bond year.
I call it “The Zeroes”. I’ve seen a few other people calling it that as well, and everyone seems to understand what I mean by the expression… but, oddly, the subject doesn’t come up all that often.
I call it “now”.
I’ve heard people refer to it as the “two thousands.” I’ve also heard about 897 attempts at coming up with a cute gimmicky name, all of which seem to have failed miserably.
The naughties gets my vote too.
I say the “2000s.” Everything else sounds overly contrived. The Naughts? The Zeroes? The Double-Ohs. Unfortunately, in the future, “the 2000s” will have ambiguity. Are we talking about the decade or the century? Heck, how do we refer to the decade from 1900-1910. “Mid-1900s” would refer to the 40s, 50s, and 60s, right? Or is it 1904, 1905 or 1906, etc?
For the moment, “21st Century” also seems to suffice for expressions which normally require a decade. Like, “Get with it… it’s the 21st Century.” But then again, some misanthropic pedants will convince you that this phrase is not applicable to the year 2000, so you’re stuck.
I submit this for a solution.
Back in the olden days of computing zeros did not look like this 0 but rather like this Ø(which doesn’t quite work since it’s called Phi). Well if we turn it 45º we’ll get something like this [symbol]q[/symbol](I wish it was fatter but oh well). That symbol is a Greek letter known as theta. If we switch out theta for zero we can call this decade the Thetas. If you graduated in '00 you can say “I’m from the class of theta-theta.” Or if you were in '04 then you can say “theta-four.” Yet since this new use of theta would be zero you can safely ignore it and still call [symbol]2qq2[/SYMBOL] “Two thousand and two” but you would retain the option of saying “Two-thousand theta-hundred and theta-two.”
Or we can simply resist the urge to give every little thing a cutesy name.
I like two that I’ve heard:
The Ohs
The Preteens
How about…The Financially Messy and Destitute Decade? - Jinx
How about 2K1, 2K2 etc.
I’ve found that odd too, that (other than on these boards) the subject doesn’t come up. I now have an idea why - you don’t talk about a whole decade except in retrospect. So in eight more years, we will talk about it more, and this decade will have a de facto name.
Yeah, if the last 18 months prove to be a fair sample of that span of time that runs between 1.1.01 and 1.1.11, everybody will know what you’re talking about when you call it:
the dark times, the bad decade, or ten years that sucked ass.
I hope I’m wrong. It doesn’t prove jack, but the first few years of the 90’s looked pretty drab, too. Difference is that '91 and '92 don’t have as much to offer historians.
I personally call it “The Aughts.” I just got sick of saying “this decade,” and after a while, found myself saying “The Aughts” more and more.
Jman
I also call it the Aughts, as in, “Back when I was a lad in aught-three, we didn’t have fancy-ass hover scooters.”
I also use “aughts”. It just sounds right to me.
“Back in aught one, I had just graduated college.”