I’ve heard alot of people asking how the year 2000 is going to be referred to (zero zero, oh oh, aughties, and yes…even the naughties). I have a simple solution…how about the two-thousand? The reason that, for example, the year 1997 is shortened to '97 is because in our lazy-assed society (am I allowed to say that?) it is alot easier to say ninety-seven, then it is to say nineteen ninety-seven, or even more properly, “The One Thousand, Nine Hundred, Ninety-Seventh year of our Lord.” Considering that ninety-seven has three syllables, and two thousand has three syllables, it would probably be easy to say two thousand then to think of some fancy catchphrase for it. And if that isn’t pleasing enough for some folks, when Mr. Greenburg’s daughter addresses her class for her valedictorian speech, she can always address them as the “Class of Y2K”.
I have moved this topic to this forum. – CKDextHavn, Administrator
How many? There are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can’t
I’m still confused over people who write the date thusly:
6/25/00
while I’m writing it thusly:
6/25/0
I seem to be in a minority, but I figure with the time I’ll save over the next 9 1/2 years not typing the extra zero I’ll have about 10 hours to gloat…
It’s not the year 2000 that’s the problem. It’s 2001, 2002, 2010… I think the answer everyone will eventually settle upon is to call such years twenty-oh-one, twenty-ten etc. Just like nineteen-ninety-seven, but with a twenty. The real question that has been posed to Cecil and to others is what name will future historians use to refer to the whole period 2000-2012, and not any one specific year? To answer this let’s look back to the beginning of the last century. What do you call the decade that preceded the thirties, the twenties. What came before the twenties, the teens. What came before the teens? The only terms that I have ever heard to refer to the years between 1900 and 1912 is “the turn of the century” and “the early 1900’s”. The term “turn of the century” is what I think will eventually be used to refer to 2000-2012. However, this term will seem ridiculous if used in 2013 to refer to the last 12 years. Until “turn of the century” seems appropriate then people will just refer to the years 2000-2009 as the oh’s and refer to 2010-2012 individually and not as an era. I am not old enough to remember 1913 but if anyone out there can, did they use the term “the oh’s” to refer to the first decade of the century? I have never heard anyone use this term, but it seems appropriate.
I’m calling 2000 “The 21st Century for Idiots.” That has quite a lot of syllables though, and gets me funny looks at the supermarket.