When the year changed from 1-9-9-9 to 2-0-0-0, and then again to 2-0-0-1, I wondered how it would be pronounced. After all, everybody usually said "nineteen ninety-nine" and so on.
"Two thousand" was said, inevitably, and followed up by "two thousand and one." (The Arthur C. Clarke influence, maybe?) But after that it's been "two thousand and..." or sometimes just "two thousand." I thought it might be switched at some point to "twenty" something.
But of late, now that year numbers higher than 2-0-0-9 are approaching, I've heard more and more people start saying "twenty ten," or "twenty twelve," or whatever.
What is it? What should it be? Anybody got any thoughts, comments, expectations, further explorations of the topic, or whatever? (I mean, we are kinda concerned with the future and exploring it, so it seems something of a topic, both the futurism of it and the aesthetic / literary values...)
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
I've been calling the years oh-one, oh-two...this is oh-eight.
I figure in 2010 it'll be ten or twenty ten.
Posted by skadder (Member # 6757) on :
Personally I have been using the Mayan calendar for years now.:P
Posted by Wordmerchant (Member # 7778) on :
It is Two Thousand Eight here, but if Zaegar and Evans are reliable authorities, in just a few hundred years it will be the Year Twenty Five Twenty Five.
[This message has been edited by Wordmerchant (edited February 25, 2008).]
Posted by Marzo (Member # 5495) on :
I say "two thousand and ___," but once we hit the double digits, it'll be "twenty ____" all the way.
It's going to be amusing reminiscing about "the twenties" in a few decades. (Unless they turn out to suck, of course.) I imagine that might be a joke only the pre-21st century generations will appreciate.
Posted by SaucyJim (Member # 7110) on :
I'll probably say "twenty-ten" for ease of conversation.
Not that it'll matter for long. Nostradamus says the world will end in 2012 anyway. Oh well.
Posted by smncameron (Member # 7392) on :
I thought that was the mayans who predicted it would end shortly before christmas.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
They called 1910 through 1919 (or maybe 1911 through 1920) "the teens"---but I don't know whether that was during or after.
Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :
2012 (pronounced twenty-twelve by me) is the last year of the Mayan long count calendar. That's where the prediction that the world will end in 2012 comes from. Whether Nostradamus also predicted the end in 2012, I'm not sure. I thought there was a big (or not so big) brouha about it being the end of the world according to Nostradamus a few years ago.
Posted by tnwilz (Member # 4080) on :
Wait you lost me, isn't it the 20th day of Adar 5768, today? or do you live in one of those other countries.
PS, if i did use the gregorian calender I would say Oh-eight
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
The world will end when the sun becomes a red giant. Until then, don't sweat it.
Posted by LCastle (Member # 7363) on :
According to these folks, it's actually 02008. (which my grandma would have pronounced "aught-twenty-aught-eight")
[This message has been edited by LCastle (edited February 26, 2008).]
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
If the Mayans or Nostradamus knew the world would end on such-and-such a date, how did they know it? And why wouldn't anyone else?
Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :
The Mayans did not actually predict the end of the world in 2012. It's just that they this calandar called the long count calendar that measures really long periods of time. Basically, all of human history fits into one year on the the long count calendar, and that year ends in what we think of as 2012. Some people have extrapolated from that that 2012 will be the end of the world as we know it.
Someone correct me if you know I'm wrong. It's been awhile since I learned this stuff and I'm a bit shaky on the details. I'd say I'm at about 75% certainty that I got it right.
As far as Nostradamus is concerned, he knew about the end of the world the same way Miss Cleo knows how my financial future is going to turn out. You can know all sorts of things if you just lie about it.
Posted by shimiqua (Member # 7760) on :
Or maybe Nostradomus was a time traveller sent back from the year 2012 (prononced by me twenty twelve) to warn every one about the end of the world, and people like you wet willy are blocking his goal. Hmmm. that would be an interesting story... Dibs. (Grin)
[This message has been edited by shimiqua (edited February 27, 2008).]
[This message has been edited by shimiqua (edited February 27, 2008).]
Posted by Rommel Fenrir Wolf II (Member # 4199) on :
well in 2525 i will still be here. well alive that is.
i say twenty hundred eight AD
or if i am filling out army paper work i go
28 FEB 2008 or civi 2-28-08
RFW2nd
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Near as I can make out, at least when I've looked at something close to the original writings, Nostradamus was doing some political commentary in the guise of astrology, at a time in France when it was fairly, er, unhealthy to do political commentary at all.
One Nostradamus book I read when I was a kid said he predicted nuclear war would break out in 1973 (nineteen-seventy-three, in a nod to my original post) and last until 2000 (two thousand). I'm pretty sure I would have noticed it.
Posted by Cheyne (Member # 7710) on :
I'll say Two-thousand eight, two-thousand nine then after that twenty-ten etc.
Nostradamus was a fraud. People have always been eager to hear bad news. If he was so accurate why didn't we save the Kennedys or stop Hitler? You can read just about anything you want into his poetry.
[This message has been edited by Cheyne (edited February 28, 2008).]
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I completely neglected to mention another school of thought, but both came up today, once on a radio news program and once on a bumper sticker: "Two-thousand-aught-eight."
Unfortunately the news jockey went a little too far and also said: "two-thousand-aught-twelve," which added another digit to the four already there...
Posted by rickfisher (Member # 1214) on :
How come aught and naught can both mean zero?
Posted by Cheyne (Member # 7710) on :
Aught came into use by verbal slippage. "A naught" was miswritten as "An aught" much in the same way as "An eek name" became "A nick name"
[From an aught, alteration of a naught; see naught.]
Posted by darklight (Member # 5213) on :
The dictionary deffinition of aught (awt) says it menas everything. Where I come from (Lincolnshire slang) it means nothing. But then I'm from England, so things are probably different over the pond.
Posted by rickfisher (Member # 1214) on :
My dictionary has aught[1] and aught[2]. The first means anything, the second means nothing.
quote:When I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean: no more and no less. --Lewis Carroll
