4 ms·

doesn't 'the noughties' just mean 2000-2009 (plus or minus one on either end)?

• sr2 9y ago
  Yeah it does, but it's a corruption of the previous attempts at labeling decades and doesn't really solve the problem of labeling decades. A decade is actually meaningless in terms of what it represents culturally, and since the explosion of The Internet, culture is now smeared and has no basis in a decade anymore. We've reached a post-post-post-post modern era. Rushkoff goes into this more in his 'present shock' theory https://www.theverge.com/2013/3/21/4131130/obsessed-with-now-douglas-rushkoff-and-the-threat-of-present-shock https://www.theverge.com/2013/3/21/4131130/obsessed-with-now...
  • jamesrcole 9y ago
    Sometimes you just want to refer to a granular period of time -- e.g. "I was living in Alaska in the noughties" or "It wasn't until the noughties that I decided what I really wanted to do in my career" -- and as far as that goes such a term can be useful.
    • sr2 9y ago
      Fair point. I get funny looks when I say something like this though: "I was living in Alaska in the holocene era". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar