Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Why I say "Two Thousand Ten"

Ok so which is it, "Two Thousand Ten" or "Twenty Ten"? If I look back at the previous century, I always said "Nineteen" something, mainly because I had always heard it that way. My theory for why that was done is because, at the turn of the 20th century, the natural thing to call 1900 was "Nineteen Hundred". Therefore, the natural thing to call 1901, etc. was "Nineteen One". However, when the 21st century arrived, 2000 was called "Two Thousand", not "Twenty Hundred". After calling the year "Two Thousand" for an entire year, it became natural to follow that up with "Two Thousand One". This makes it difficult to break this habit and start calling the years by another name. Perhaps somewhere down the line, maybe by the teens, it may become more natural to use "Twenty" something but I am continuing with "Two Thousand ...". So there.

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