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Despite many people's best efforts "the oughts" never quite caught on like they did turn of last century.
by parrellel 7y ago
Despite many people's best efforts "the oughts" never quite caught on like they did turn of last century.
- cgriswald 7y agoIt’s “aughts”, which is a term for zero, but rarely used outside certain contexts. I prefer it, but it’s not surprising it didn’t catch on. Otherwise I greatly prefer “the early 2000s”. It’s not very precise, but it’s more precise than “the 2000’s” which can include the year 2999.
- parrellel 7y agoAh, spelling, old foe. What contexts do you generally see it used in, out of curiosity? I'm assuming it still appears in places besides revivals of "The Music Man"
- cgriswald 7y agoThis is the first thing that comes to mind: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-06_Springfield https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-06_Springfield I’ve only ever heard this pronounced thirty aught-six.
- geggam 7y agoand for the sophisticated redneck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.25-06_Remington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.25-06_Remington
- mieseratte 7y agoAlso double-aught buckshot.
- dasil003 7y agoThat'll sort it itself out over the coming decades; but the other interesting one to me is that a sizeable group (majority?) of people are still saying "two thousand nineteen" instead of "twenty nineteen". I'm pretty sure I stopped using the former shortly after 2009 ended. I wonder if that'll stick for the whole century. In the other language I speak fluently (Portuguese) there never was an abbreviation, it was always the full "one thousand nine hundred ninety" as opposed to "nineteen ninety". In that case "two thousand" is already an improvement, but for some reason it bothers me in English.
- cgriswald 7y agoInteresting. I definitely prefer “twenty nineteen”, but can’t swear I would never call it “two thousand nineteen”. It might end up sticking around until 2100.