At least where I live, people are calling it “two thousand ten”, the “and” dropping by the wayside, (or so brief it can’t be heard), as “two thousand and ten” with the “and” fully pronounced tends to sound clunky
It’s “twenty whatever” from here on out, at least for most people who think for themselves. “Two thousand …” is gone.
Once a major media outlet starts saying “twenty ten”, the rest of media will follow within the week and the vast majority of Americans will follow within a few months tops. I predict some media outlet will switch this very week.
As to when we’ll drop the “twenty” and just say eleven or thirty-two or whatever, I bet that’ll start in 2011 and the conversion will happen a bit more slowly. “Ten” all by itself is just too short unless the context makes it real clear you’re talking about a date. So the change won’t get under way (much) until 11.
There are a whole generation of people who grew up around the turn of the century & the Y2K thing who got indoctrinated that the century number is an important part of a date and needs to be explicitly included. They’ve never heard or seen widespread use of 2-digit dates. Those of us who grew up saying '64 and '72 and such will revert back to '12 or '17 a lot easier than the folks born from about 1990 to 2005. But they’ll come around too.
Finally, a lot of marketing embeds year numbers. Consider Windows 95, Windows 98, but Windows 2000. Consider Office 95, Office 98, Office 2000, Office 2003, Office 2007, and (coming soon) Office 2010.
“Ford: all new for twelve!” Or will they say “Ford: all new for twenty-twelve!”? When the marketers shift, the public will follow. What will Major League Baseball call this season? Ten or twenty-ten?
My bet is “twenty-ten” this year and plain old “eleven” next year for most marketing blather.
Those are definiltey Y2K accomodations, you have to make the product title four digits too so that teh planes don’t fall out of the sky zomg!!1!
The people behind that website must have said ‘twenty oh nine’ as well.
I care about a lot of insignificant things others could care less about. Good to see the shoe on the other foot for once.