I realized today that for some reason, "2012" doesn't register in my brain as a year quite yet when I see it. It's a stretch to think about 2009, but at least I think "year" when I see that string of numbers. 2012, though …
While I'm on it, I know we would have read "1984" as "nineteen eighty-four" but we read "2007" as "two-thousand seven." I'm guessing that by 2010 we'll shorthand it again as "twenty ten"? (Though "twenty eleven" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.)
Whoah! Deep thoughts for a Wednesday. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm all screwed up now....and it didn't take much to get me this way! I remember reading "1984" WAY BACK WHEN....and how we're so far past that....so far past it that we can't even figure out what to call the year we're in....
ReplyDeleteReally looking forward to meeting you in March! this is gonna be a kick-ass time.......
I am SO CONFUZED... but then again, that doesn't take much!
ReplyDeleteThe way people pronounce the year has annoyed me in 2001. People will say it the incorrect way until I die.. "Two thousand AND twelve." Where did the AND come from?
ReplyDeleteIn mathematics, AND represents a decimal. So it would look like this, 2000.12. If you were born in 1968, you didn't say I was born in nineteen sixty and eight; so why would you say two thousand and twelve?
But Sorted, English and mathematics haven't always agreed. Grammatically, it sounds to me like something's missing. "Two thousand and twelve" ... what? Twelve hundredths (as in 2000.12 below)? Or is the "AND" meant to replace "PLUS" (as in two AND two ARE four)?
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