Happy New Year! How Will You Pronounce 2010?
Posted: Saturday, December 26, 2009
by Danny Davids
In less than a week we enter yet another new year, the last year of the first decade of the 21st century (we've had this discussion already concerning 2000, so take my word for it--we're not about to start a new decade for another year). Happy 2010! But one question: How will you pronounce the New Year?
The argument about how to properly pronounce the years in the first decade of the 2000s started back in the 1960s. Stanley Kubrick was about to release his science fiction movie "2001: A Space Odyssey". He wanted it pronounced "Twenty Oh One"; movie executives and advertisers preferred "Two Thousand and One". Eventually the latter group won out. If you referred to the movie as anything but "Two Thousand and One" you'd have to explain yourself to your listening audience.
But is that really how you pronounce the number? Mathematicians tell us that in pronouncing numbers, the word "and" is a separator indicating that the numbers following the "and" are either fractions or decimals, values less than one. So when a mathematician hears "two thousand and one" he's thinking the number 2000.1. The proper pronunciation for 2001 would be "two thousand one."
Kubrick would be so disappointed. Instead of "Twenty Oh One" we were saying "Two Thousand One" (and some of us were putting the "and" in between the "thousand" and the "one"). It's been that way for the last nine years, so there's no reason to expect things to change next year. Right?
Not necessarily so. Already we hear on the news of the year "Twenty Ten", not "Two Thousand Ten" or "Two Thousand and Ten." Why the change in pronunciation? When did "two thousand" change to "twenty"? Is it that we're looking for every shortcut possible? "Twenty Ten" has three syllable, whereas "Two Thousand Ten" has four. Will numeric purists win out, and we'll all end up saying "Two Thousand Ten" to make the mathematicians happy? Or will we throw that "and" into the mix just because a movie says so?
Regardless of how we pronounce the new year, it is nearly upon us. So Happy Two Thousand Ten, or Happy Twenty-Ten, or just plain old Happy New Year!
The argument about how to properly pronounce the years in the first decade of the 2000s started back in the 1960s. Stanley Kubrick was about to release his science fiction movie "2001: A Space Odyssey". He wanted it pronounced "Twenty Oh One"; movie executives and advertisers preferred "Two Thousand and One". Eventually the latter group won out. If you referred to the movie as anything but "Two Thousand and One" you'd have to explain yourself to your listening audience.
Kubrick would be so disappointed. Instead of "Twenty Oh One" we were saying "Two Thousand One" (and some of us were putting the "and" in between the "thousand" and the "one"). It's been that way for the last nine years, so there's no reason to expect things to change next year. Right?
Not necessarily so. Already we hear on the news of the year "Twenty Ten", not "Two Thousand Ten" or "Two Thousand and Ten." Why the change in pronunciation? When did "two thousand" change to "twenty"? Is it that we're looking for every shortcut possible? "Twenty Ten" has three syllable, whereas "Two Thousand Ten" has four. Will numeric purists win out, and we'll all end up saying "Two Thousand Ten" to make the mathematicians happy? Or will we throw that "and" into the mix just because a movie says so?
Regardless of how we pronounce the new year, it is nearly upon us. So Happy Two Thousand Ten, or Happy Twenty-Ten, or just plain old Happy New Year!
This Article has been viewed 2,572 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (6 total)I'm a "two thousand ten" guy, myself. That form seems to be consistent in other languages. I will admit, though, that pronouncing one of the last years of the previous century as "one thousand nine hundred ninety-nine" would have been cumbersome at best; it also would have been consistent linguistically. I'm not certain if it's an American or globally English custom to want to shorten some words or phrases, but since it's only four syllables, how much time do we really save by shortening it to three. At least until 2011, that is.Ken, some people are anal enough that saving one syllable is worth it. Heh. :)
Interesting stuff! Not only do we need to figure out how to say "2010", we need to think of a name for the decade 2010-2019.Some think it should be called the "teenies", but I don't like that for two reasons - it makes it sounds like it will be frustrating and dominated by hormones, and 2010-2012 aren't "teen" numbers.Also, going from the "noughties" to the "teenies" just seems far too silly :)Some want to call it the "tweenies".Personally I think it should be the "tenties*", because it starts with ten in the same way the 80s started with 80 etc.Also, "tenties" conjures up camping imagery, and living out in nature, in tents, might just be a good way to reduce our carbon footprints :)* following on from this, the next step would be to rename all the following:eleven - tentyonetwelve - tentytwothirteen - tentythreeetcThis would also completely and instantly eliminate teen-age pregnancy and teen-age crime**.** However it may also result in a massive increase in pregnancies and crime amongst "tenty-somethings"Problem number one: "Tenty" and "Twenty" sound so much alike there would be great confusion. You'd end up with two decades of people who wouldn't be exactly sure how old they are. Problem number two: It has something to do with those pregnancy/crime stats; unfortunately I've forgotten. Ah well. *shrug*
I'm still laughing about "tentythree" and teen pregnancies but since I can't follow that with anything even remotely clever, I'll just go for the serious and throw my vote for "twenty-ten". Also, I'll point out the "twenty" has an advantage since we're all used to calling our years "nineteen" something or other, not "one thousand nine hundred" something or other or even "nineteen thousand" something.On the subject of pronouncing / naming things oddly, I recommend having a look at the Butterfield Diet video on YouTube (the guy who plays Butterfield is the guy who did the voice for Darth Maul in Star Wars...really!).He pronounces his (fictitious) website www dot butterfield-diet dot com as "doubleyew, double-doubleyew, full stop. Buterfield Diet. Full Stop. Cee Oh Em"Butterfield would probably pronounce 2010 as "Two hundred and one zero" :)
Brilliant, funny, well written article. Thanks, Danny. I kinda like Two Oh One Oh. ~mogama~The mathematicians will have your head on a platter for that one, Mogama. It should be "Two Zero One Zero." :)
Such an interesting question. Personally, I think I'll say two thousand and ten. I feel like I've been doing that already. But tewnty ten is shorter and could certainly catch on!
Nicely done. How about on-on-off-on-off (or some variation) for our digitalized world?Oooo, Michael. Which base? Base two (11111011010)? Base eight (3732)? Hexadecimal (7DA)? Or maybe since there's all this hype over 2012, we should use the Mayans' base 20 (which would be a 5 in the 400s column, a 0 in the 20s column, and a 10 in the ones column). Take your pick. :)
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.