How To Pronounce The Year Correctly: Twenty Ten

Strange. Here in Norway, the suggested "correct" version that our networks have to comply with is "two tousand and ten". But you're not jailed for saying "twenty-ten" either, but our language council wants it that way.

But grammatically, "twenty-ten" is thirty. Or in hex, "twenty-A" is simply the most important number ever.

It is two thousand and ten.
S-r-ex is correct.
Stupid humans and their nifty ideas of how shit should be said.
Queuebot needs to be shot for letting this pile of stink on the front page.

"But grammatically, 'twenty-ten' is thirty."

By that logic, "nineteen ninety-nine" (1999) would be 118.

Saying "twenty ten" makes sense, considering the traditional pronunciation of all past years. But, neither way is "correct."

im guessing the habbit would of sourced from the year 2000, so did these guys want us to call the year 2000 20??

You're both clearly, clearly wrong. There is no precedent for two-thousand ten.

I'm kickin' it old skool and saying twenty ten from now on like we used to before y2k. Two thousand ten is soooo bleh.

I preferred to use two thousand ought nine, but nobody else wanted to.

why not keep it short... like 88 instead of 1988. Just say 10

I'll just point out that when it gets to be the 22nd century, it seems unlikely that people are going to say "two thousand, one hundred ten."

They're going to say twenty-one ten.

Saying "twenty-ten" is simply logical. It consists of only three syllables, while "two thousand and ten" has five syllables. We like things quick, so I'd be willing to bet that before long everyone will be using "twenty-ten." (However, I suspect that the people at the CBC here in Canada have been told to use the long version, because I haven't once heard the short way used on air.)

The correct way? Defining the correctness of some trivial social issue is the first step to pogroms and genocide.

I refuse to call it twenty ten. Two thousand and ten sounds way better. Also, I like being awkward ;)

No way. The year IS number two thousand and ten, NOT twenty ten. Pronounce it as what it is.

what did they say in years 1000 - 1009? i bet when it came to 1010 it was called ten ten , not one thousand and ten.
not important, but an interesting topic.

First of all, there was no year 0. Therefore the 21st century did not start till 2001. So the decade will not end until the end of this year (2010). I realize that a decade is 10 years and for example 1985-1995 is a decade, but we've still got one year left till the first decade of this century is complete. AS far as the pronunciation.. Call it what you will, but there should be no "and" in between two thousand ___ ten" When you refer to money, you don't say two thousand AND ten dollars AND five cents, for example. If you choose to pronounce it that way, just say two thousand ten. Even though, in my opinion, twenty ten sounds better.

or i guess it would be from 1986-1995. but you get the point.

FFS is it actually important? It doesn't matter which way you say it, people will know what you mean.

Storm. Teacup.

Excuse me MyThoughts, but 1985-1995 is not a decade; it is eleven years. Jan. 1, 1985 to Dec. 31, 1994 is a ten year period.

Sorry MyThoughts, didn't see your second post before I chimed in.

As long as we're talking English, and as long as we're trying to be self consistent, there's a few logically straightforward conclusions about pronouncing years.

Firstly, correctness has nothing to do with brevity. If we call it "twenty ten" out of laziness we should at least not fool ourselves about /why/ we're doing that. It's brief and quicker, yes, but that's all.

Secondly this nonsense about "twenty ten" being correct has to stop. As a previous poster said, the year names are indeed numbers, so the correct pronunciation of years is the same as for the numbers.

Thirdly, the Americans have bastardised English in so many subtle ways that it is recognised as a distinct dialect of English, distinct from Commonwealth English. If the Americans want to drop the "AND"s out of the traditionally correct (UK) pronunciation of numbers, then they should not expect us sensible types to go along with their lunacy. It sounds completely awkward to us when we hear yanks say 2009 as "two thousand nine", it just makes us cringe. Really.
You'll only take our numbers from our cold dead ANDs.

Happy new year for twenty ten!
(I'm lazy but well informed.)

I want to pronounce it two thousand and ten just to see if people are willing to show this much interest while face to face. Should be worth a few laughs if people are willing to blather about this non issue irl.

This is definitely interesting and all. As a matter of efficiency, twenty-ten has one less syllable; so I'm going with that. But what really has be baffled, is, there seems to be no clear consensus on a term for the decade 2000-2010. What's it called? Eighties, nineties,????. any thoughts?

I'm not surprised to see that someone's already put up a counterpoint web site. Their point isn't that "two thousand [and] ten" is correct but that it doesn't matter WHAT you say as long as people know what you mean:

http://www.2000nottwenty.com/

As far as naming the decade, I just hope "noughties" doesn't stick. Blech. I prefer "two thousands" or "oh's" since those probably correspond best to what people used conversationally throughout the decade.

Why do we have this urge to divide history neatly into decades, anyways? George Michael said it best in 1990: "Now everybody's talkin' about this new decade / like you say the magic numbers / then just say goodbye to the stupid mistakes you made..."

The National Association of Good Grammar (NAGG) has endorsed "twenty-ten".

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/01/MN621BB41U.DTL

Miss C. The National Association of Good Grammar is just one guy, just like it says in the SFGate article. So "this guy" has endorsed a convention that suits him because it is "easier to say" not because it is accurate.

Interesting, but I just need to know what all those radio stations across the country that (used) to play the "best music of the Eighties, Nineties and Now!" are going to say.

For the aughts it was ok to say "thousand" because two thousand five has the same number of syllables as twenty o five. But two thousand ten has one more syllable than twenty ten. It's that o that got you for the aughts. No more.

And what the hell is wrong with Norway? Some language council wants to jail people for saying twenty ten?

Ha ha! This website needs to do some proofreading.
http://www.2000nottwenty.com/

"So the decade will not end until the end of this year (2010)."

http://theslot.blogspot.com/2010/01/happy-new-decade.html

"No way. The year IS number two thousand and ten, NOT twenty ten. Pronounce it as what it is."

Do you also say "year one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine"? I didn't think so.

Good point, Wes. But then again, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine is a far greater mouthful than nineteen ninety-nine.

And Juice: Yes, Norway is screwed. Don't ask.

Twenty-ten, Twenty-ten, Twenty-ten, Twenty-ten, Twenty-ten, Twenty-ten, Twenty-ten, Twenty-ten, Twenty -Twen.
Twendy tendie... *head explodes*

*head explodes*
which futurama episode was it that the car sales manager robot's head exploded when Amy offered a huge sum instead of trying to jew him down? (anybody ?)
on subject....we always said oh5,oh6,oh7,oh8,oh9 now it will be 10, 11 etc. whatsohard bout that?

Wes, there is a point where the word is cumbersome to pronounce. This is different then when someone wants to make the pronunciation "more efficient" by chopping a few syllables off.

Love it. I just had a conversation about this at work today: "When are we gonna start saying 'twenty' instead of 'two thousand'?" Regardless, I am in agreement with the site http://www.2000nottwenty.com/ . There is no "wrong" way to say it. I mean really, as long as it is accurate (numerically) a number is a number.

You don't hear people arguing about this when talking about prices, do you?
"How much?"
"Fifteen hundred, fifty dollars."
"Don't you mean one thousand, five hundred and fifty dollars?"
Pointless. I say, go with whatever feels most comfortable on your tongue.

two-oh-one-oh

The idiot who said that 2009 should be pronounced twenty AND nine is no mathematician. The word AND denotes a decimal, for example five AND two-tenths (5.2).

I don't really care how people pronounce 2010. Twenty ten would be the social norm, and two thousand ten could be used on more formal occasions.

My favorite term for 2000-2009 is the uh-oh decade.

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date ...

I've decided to use the song "In the Year 2525" by Visage as my authority:

In the year of 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find
In the year of 3535
Can't tell the truth, can't tell no lie
Everything you think, do and say
Is in the pill you took today
In the year of 4545
Won't need no teeth ,won't need your eyes
Won't find a thing to do
Nobody's gonna look at you
In the year of 5555
Your arms are hanging limp at your side
Your legs have nothing to do
Some machines doin' that for you
In the year of 6565
Won't need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your sons, pick your daughters too
From the bottom of a long glass tube wouwo
In the year of 7510
If god is commin' he should make it by then
Maybe he'll look around and say:
"Now it's time for the judgement day!"
In the year of 8510
God is gonna shake his mighty hand
He'll leave a salient place where man has been
Or tear it down and start again wouwo
In the year of 9595
I'm wondering if man is gonna be alive
He's taken everything earth had to give
And he's put back nothing wouwo
Now it's been 10.000 years man has cried a million tears
For what he never knew now man's dream is through
But through eternal light the twinklin' of starlight
So very far away now it's night to yesterday...
******
In case you've never heard it, the years are pronounced "twenty five twenty five" and "eighty five ten". I'm pretty sure you'd never hear anyone pronouncing it "eighty five hundred and ten" or "eight thousand five hundred and ten".

To paraphrase Mrs Hatred of Leicester "Let's not call it anything, let's just ignore it." (MPFC)

Naomi Williams +1.

I think I'll say two-zero one-zero to drive you all crazy.

Last decade, I usually said, 'two thousand something' or 'two thousand and something' to refer to a year. Now, whenever I refer to any of the years of the last decade, I somehow got lazy, and just call it by its last two digits (i.e., 'oh-four' for 2004).

For the coming years, though, I've been calling them 'twenty-something'. I don't know, it just sounds better. I tried calling them 'two-thousand-something' or even just by their last two digits, but it didn't sound as natural for some reasons (IMO). I bet you though that by 2060s or 2070s, people will forget that we have this conversation at all, and call years in the 21st century only by their last 2 digits.

1000=ten hundred

1001=ten oh one

1002=ten oh two

1010=ten ten

1066=ten sixty-six (Battle of Hastings)

.

.

1492=fourteen ninety-two (the genocide of the indigenous peoples of North and South America begins)

.

.

1700=seventeen hundred

1701=seventeen oh one

1776=seventeen seventy-six (Declaration of Independence)

.

.

1800=eighteen hundred

1801=eighteen oh one

1898=eighteen ninety eight (Spanish-American War)

.

.

1900=nineteen hundred

1901=nineteen oh one (In poesy, nineteen aught and one)

1910=nineteen ten

1929=nineteen twenty-nine (stock market crash and start of the Great Depression)

1942=nineteen forty-two (Pearl Harbor attacked)

1943=nineteen forty-three (the year of my nativity)

1999=nineteen ninety-nine (the last four-digit year in the Gregorian calendar that started with the numeral one)

2000=tweny hundred (Do YOU pronounce the letter “t” in the word “twenty” when used in a compound number like 25? Tweny-five.)

2001=tweny oh one (What does Hollywood know? Two thousand and one: A Space Odyssey. Bah humbug!)

2002=tweny oh two

2003=tweny oh three

2004=tweny oh four

2005=tweny oh five

2006=tweny oh six

2007=tweny oh seven

2008=tweny oh eight

2009=tweny oh nine

2010=tweny ten (the year Jesus Christ celebrates the two thousand tenth anniversary of his nativity)

2012=tweny twelve (last year in the Mayan long-count calendar)

2036=tweny thirty-six (Soc Sec pays out more than it takes in and starts to go broke)

'Nuf said.