Just a note to say a warm ‘happy new year’ to everyone who reads my blog (all 1 of you).
I thought that I’d try and being getting people into the trend of pronouncing the year correctly now, which I’ve been doing since 2005.
Right, when you read the 2005 bit there, did you say in your head “two-thousand and five” or “twenty-o-five”? There’s substantial difference.
I believe that in twenty-o-seven, I will probably save an hour of my life through the means of not wasting unnecessary syllables.
In fact the time, energy and effort saved should be enough to convince everybody of the fact. And let’s face it, by 2027, nobody in their right mind should be referring to the period as “two-thousand and so-and-so”. We didn’t in the 1900’s, so why now?
It’s just a bad habit that we have entered into from that millennium thing that shadowed over us back in 1999 (that’s nineteen ninety-nine – not nineteen thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine). We could really say, “Twenty-oh-oh”, and so two-thousand seemed a nice round number.
But here we are. Everybody is still saying two-thousand and such and such, although I have noticed that when I refer to the year with the more standard reference, people will copy me automatically which is odd and unnerving.
So come on! Make saying the year the right way a resolution for 2007!