2010
That’s pronounced “Twenty-Ten”:
Until the turn of the millennium got us all confused, we had an easy familiarity with each year:
When did William the Conqueror invade England? Ten Sixty-Six.
When did Christopher Columbus cross the Atlantic? Fourteen Ninety-Two.
When was the Declaration of Independence signed? Seventeen Seventy-Six.
And that Tchaikovsky piece? The Eighteen Twelve Overture.
Pearl Harbor? Nineteen Forty-One.
How did Prince want us to party? Like it’s Nineteen Ninety-Nine.
Two thousand? Party over. And we’ve been choking on “two thousand whatever” ever since. (Although Bonne Bell never had any trouble with “Ten O Six.”)
Fortunately, none of us have to go through that again, except maybe Phillip J. Fry.
Kirk »
28 December 2009 · 8:16 am
I’ve been amused by this phenomenon for the entire decade. I remember my grandparents talking about things that happened when they were kids, and they would refer to “back in aught-five”, etc. They had it figured out then, but we couldn’t grok that, I guess.