2010
Apparently there’s some argument as to how to pronounce that particular year.
Count me on the Twenty-Ten side, despite the example of The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince:
Two thousand zero zero, party over, oops, out of time
So tonight I’m gonna party like it’s nineteen ninety-nine
And while we’re at it, what about five-digit house numbers? We’re seeing a lot more of those — even some six-digit jobs — as old Rural Routes are converted to something that 911 can understand. I don’t think there’s a standard for this. I read 10720 as “one oh seven twenty”; most people I know prefer “ten seven twenty.” I argue that this practice demands that 20720 be rendered “twenty seven twenty,” which is actually 2720, but no one listens to me. The schmucks who spell out their addresses in script seem to be evenly divided.
Deborah »
21 October 2009 · 8:29 am
I pronounce every number in addresses and telephone numbers. I never confuse altitude and elevation (and don’t fly with pilots who do), and I never call a zero an “oh.” Bad juju.
McGehee »
21 October 2009 · 12:03 pm
I would say “ten seven twenty,” or other appropriate permutation, but use “two oh” for other versions where the second digit is a zero.
I think the “ten-seven-…” form comes from the practice of referring to five-digit prices, wherein 11720 would be “eleven (thousand) seven (hundred) seventy.”
I rather suspect that when the “Common Era” achieves five digits, the length of time during which two consecutive digits will be encountered may lead to resetting the calendar. Perhaps “N.C.E.” for “New Common Era.”
Ten thousand years after that we’ll probably be using hexadecimal.
McGehee »
21 October 2009 · 12:04 pm
Oh, and the only occasion where I would be persnickety about zeroes vs. O’s is license plates and ham radio call signs.
Mark Alger »
21 October 2009 · 6:17 pm
When I was a radio dispatcher, I diddit thusly:
One-digit numbers, with a “number” — Number Four Grandin Lane.
Two-digit numbers up to twenty as above, “Number 12 Weebetook.” Two-digit numbers 21 to 99 as-read. “Twenty-four West Court Street.”
Three-digit numbers number, as-read. “Four-sixteen Riddle Road.”
Four-digit numbers as two pair of two-digit numbers: “Thirty-eight, forty-two Millsbrae.”
Five digit numbers as ZIP codes: “One seven two nine-oh Princeton Pike.”
The idea being that each method sets off a differrent reaction in the hearer’s mind and lets him more-easily comprehend the numbers — sort of a mini-mnemonic created on the fly.
On a similar note: doncha just HATE the computer programs that jam all the digits of long strings of them into single masses, removing any punctuation that make them easier to scan and remember? Such as: telephone numbers, credit card numbers, ZIP-plus-4, and so-forth.
(859)555-1212 is a lot easier to apprehend than 8595551212.
M
Lisa Paul »
21 October 2009 · 8:04 pm
Can’t comment on years as house numbering systems are what have me frothing at the mouth.
Who figures these things out? Still puzzling why there are approximately 5 houses on the 5 miles of rural route leading to our country property. And none of the land can be subdivided smaller than 40 acres, the area is zoned agricultural so only one dwelling per parcel is allowed. Yet our number is 2000 something. So what are they reserving thousands of numbers for? Coyote dens? Anti hills? Mesquite bushes?
CGHill »
21 October 2009 · 8:23 pm
Numbering systems vary somewhat, but they usually work something like this:
As seen in Wabasha County, Minnesota. In some states, one corner is used as a base point for the entire state: South Dakota starts the grid in the northwest corner and runs 100 addresses per mile, with east-west roads designated “Street” and north-south roads designated “Avenue,” which explains this.
McGehee »
21 October 2009 · 9:30 pm
Also, changing an addressing system can be a great deal more trouble than changing zoning to allow more homes in a given stretch of road.
At one time I worked delivering not-pizza and one of the destinations turned out to be in a location that had been grandfathered when the city changed its house-numbering system. It was out of sequence and on the wrong side of the road, but they hadn’t bothered to mention that to the dispatcher.
They got their food, along with a gentle demurrer to the suggestion it should be free because it had taken so long.
CGHill »
21 October 2009 · 10:03 pm
An uncle of mine lived on a street on the east side of Savannah that had the numbers running up one side and down the other.
The “new” (circa 1962) Naval housing in Charleston, SC had streets (avenues, actually) named for various states, and each had its own block sequence, unrelated to any sort of grid. Alaska Avenue had 100s; West Virginia Avenue was, I think, the 2200s.
The Oklahoma City grid perplexes people because it’s a standard 100-to-the-block setup, but the numbered street is at the end of the block, not the beginning: the block between 59th and 60th is the 6000s, not the 5900s.
Lisa Paul »
21 October 2009 · 10:35 pm
I see the logic of the rural numbering system, Chaz. Yet it doesn’t work for rural Sonoma, where every year they up the number of acres required for minimum subdivision as they attempt to keep the area agricultural. By my calculation, at full development, there could only be 6 houses on this stretch of road. Which is assuming all the land is buildable — which it is not. That leaves us thousands and thousands of “saved” house numbers. I’ve thought of getting small house signs and marking all the prickly pear cactus in this area with individual house numbers. That would about use them up.
CGHill »
21 October 2009 · 10:44 pm
More than once I’ve been on the edge of a small town and seen the numbers on the mailboxes up in the tens of thousands, and then a bump, the pavement makes a different noise, and the next box I see is something like 316. It’s confusing, perhaps, but then I don’t live there.
McGehee »
21 October 2009 · 11:06 pm
What I’ve seen of military housing suggests the addresses are based on the building number rather than the, you know, location.
CGHill »
21 October 2009 · 11:52 pm
That generally seems to be the practice, though this was the first time I’d seen it more or less street-centric.