Father Hollywood: Twenty-Ten

Thursday, December 31, 2009

An amusing article about what to call the new year.

A happy and blessed MMXAD, y'all!

Kaleb said...: Haha! *geek alert*

The reason so many of us say "two thousand nine" is that it is the best balance between familiarity and brevity.

In the year 2000 we didn't say "twenty hundred" because that would have just been weird.

In 1901, they went from "nineteen hundred" to saying "nineteen oh one" because "nineteen hundred one" has an awful lot of syllables for something said so often. It's awkward.

"Two thousand one" and "twenty oh one" have the same number of syllables, so we stuck with "two thousand" because of its familiarity. But next year, the old way will have fewer syllables, and so most people (including myself) are likely to say "twenty ten" instead of "two thousand ten."

</geekmode>; Thursday, December 31, 2009 11:27:00 AM
George said...: I'm still one of those hold-outs who doesn't believe 2010 starts a new decade. That's 2011! :); Thursday, December 31, 2009 12:25:00 PM
Sean said...: As far as I'm concerned, it's been twenty-oh-nine for a year now. Can't it be the future yet?; Thursday, December 31, 2009 1:22:00 PM
Past Elder said...: George is right, the 10 is there because it is year number 10 of the decade. We start numbering things with 1, not 0, for number crunching Judas' sake.

Now that said, why not just speak Spanish, three bloody syllables, dos mil diez, to just say the number 2010.; Friday, January 01, 2010 1:17:00 AM

Thursday, December 31, 2009