- Here's why I'm excited for the year 2010: for the first time since the 1900s, we'll be able to say like "twenty ten," "twenty sixteen," "twenty twenty-four"1—instead of this "two thousand eight" baloney. Prince didn't say, "Tonight we're gonna party like it's one thousand nine hundred ninety-nine."2 BONUS: We'll also have a name for our decade again (haven't actually heard anyone with the chutzpah to call this one "the Aughts"), although in that department what we really ought3 to be looking forward to is the '20s...
- I'm going to come out right now as not digging the high five. Sorry, I just don't care for it. Doesn't grab me. But part of the problem is—didn't the high five used to be4 a special variation? The high five. "Gimme five" was a low five, wasn't it? Or at least a neutral five. We live in a society in which every ovation is a standing ovation. Why does every five have to be high? Fuck that! And while we're on the subject, bring back the boo! Call it a crazy pendulum swing if you like, but I think I'm just about ready for the standing execration.
- The hilarious consequences of faulty parallelism, Episode XXVI:
"We are a service company that happens to sell...kids."
And that's all you get.
1 The year Michelle Obama runs for president wins the presidency!
2 Although, to be fair, that would have been a pretty amazing song.
3 No pun intended. No, really.
4 Apparently "didn't used to" is correct, although it always makes me cringe. (I'm very sensitive.)
3 comments:
And I thought I was the only one obsessed with the pronunciation of years.
I can't wait until 2010 either, and it's now almost certain that most everyone is going to switch over to "twenty" and abandon the archaic "two thousand" usage. Listen to the news, you hear about "the twenty-twelve olympics", the "war in Iraq ending in twenty-thirteen", etcetera.
But using "two thousand" from 2000-2009 makes perfect sense in terms of general linguistic patterns, because of this:
1999:
"Nineteen ninety-nine" (5 syllables) (winner)
"One thousand, nine hundred ninety nine" (9 syllables)
2000:
"Twenty hundred" (4 syllables)
"Two thousand" (3 syllables) (winner)
2001-2009:
"Twenty oh-one/nine" (4 syllables)
"Two thousand one/nine" (4 syllables)
See, it's a tie. Why not just use the "Two thousand" method from 2001-2009, it's easier because we, logically, would say "Two thousand" for 2000.
Now for:
2010:
"Twenty ten" (3 syllables) (winner)
"Two thousand ten" (4 syllables)
It reverts back to normal. So logically, it makes sense to use "two thousand" for the years 2000-2009. Won't happen again for 1,000 years. See you in 2999 AD.
Interesting. But in a recent episode of Mad Men, there was an old TV clip of Jackie Kennedy giving a tour of the White House and saying that something (maybe a couch or something?—I forget) was from "nineteen four." "Two thousand eight" has four syllables; "twenty eight" has three. Did we screw up? Or I guess then the problem is that "twenty eight" sounds like "twenty-eight" (28) whereas "nineteen four" can't really be confused with a regular number...(?)
Exactly. I don't think anyone would understand if you said "Sunday, August 31st, twenty-eight" because of the confusion with 28.
And you're also correct that "nineteen eight" wouldn't pose that problem because it doesn't resemble another existing number.
Same with 100 years from now, where "twenty one eight" (2108) will be fine to use without causing confusion.
The "oh" that we now use in "nineteen oh eight" was added later as you alluded to. But the "twenty" shorthand is just not sensible for 2000-2009, whether we say "twenty eight" or "twenty oh eight".
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