So what year is it? Sounds simple, but it isn't. Is it "two thousand and nine" or "twenty-oh-nine"? If we were to ever get over our millennium fever and return to our original way of designating years, we would do what CBS commentator Charles Osgood has been doggedly doing over the years and say we're in "twenty-oh-nine". And, from a perspective in the future, looking back on this time, people will most probably say it like that. But while we're walking through it, we're generally sticking to the "two thousand and nine" pattern. Which brings up another question: When reviewing this decade, how does one refer to it? Before, we had the nineties, eighties, seventies, etc. But the first decade of the 2000's? Do we call it the "oh's"? Or the "zero's"? Or the "units plus 2000"? Or maybe just say "2000's"? Or even "that crappy decade"?
How we designate years isn't set in stone; other languages have other systems. Many, such as Spanish or Russian, treat the year as a mathematical number and say it like that. Chinese tends to just say the individual digit values, followed by 年 (nian), their word for year. With German, they follow the English "four-and-twenty blackbirds" model with years, e.g. calling 1946 "neunzehnhundertsechsundvierzig" (nineteen hundred six-and forty). In French, 1976 is "thousand nine hundred sixty sixteen", 1980 is "thousand nine hundred four twenties", and 1999 is "thousand nine hundred four twenties nineteen"! But at least with these, they actually KNOW what to call the years they are living through!
Personally, I prefer the designation "twenty-oh-whatever" to describe the first few years of the 2000's. And then go straight into the "twenty-teens"! Continually saying "two-thousand-this" and "two-thousand-that" keeps bringing up to me the specter of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur Clarke's 1967 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, and how far short we fell from its projection for our space program's progress by that time, now in our increasingly distant past. How depressing!
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«In French, [...] 1999 is "thousand nine hundred four twenties nineteen"!»Right, but as you break it down that way, it's actually "thousand nine hundred four twenties ten nine", so it's even more of an arithmetic problem.
ReplyDeleteOf course, native French speakers don't think of "quatre-vingt" as "four twenties", but they directly hear it as "eighty"; similarly, "quatre-vingt-dix" is directly thought of as "ninety", and "quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" as "ninety-nine" (just as we don't really think "ninety and nine" when we hear "ninety-nine").
Germans are often delighted to learn that older English used the "four and twenty" construction, just as they do. On the other hand, there's a movement afoot there to reverse it, saying that it's easier for children to learn the numbers if they're in the more sensible order (the words matching the digits).
I have an amusing story from my last visit to Montreal: I was with a group of people at a pizza place, and we collected the pizza order. There, as in Europe, the pizzas are usually small and individual, and each person orders one. And you don't pick the toppings yourself, but choose from a list. So I had the list of pizza numbers, and was tasked as the group's speaker. I ordered in French.
When I ordered pizza number 72 (soixante-douze), the waiter asked me, in English, to clarify: Did I want 62 or 72? He wasn't sure, and wanted to check, whether I was correctly pronouncing soixante-douze (72), or, being an American, I was mispronouncing soixante-deux (62). A little funny, since my pronunciation of everything else was good, but I guess he preferred to be safe than sorry.
Also, French used to have words for seventy (septante), eighty (huitante), and ninety (nonante), which are still used somewhat in Belgium.
Oh, and as to the main point: I never say "twenty-oh-[anything]", but I'm sure I'll start saying "twenty-ten" and so on, and my guess is that that will become the norm.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, "nineteen-oh-one" sounds more natural than "twenty-oh-one"; I can't explain that.
Also also, the first decade of the 1900s was called "the aughts".
Yes, just as the French automatically hear "quatre-vingt" as "eighty" without breaking it down, I automatically hear "dix-neuf" as nineteen without breaking it down.
ReplyDelete"Aughts": that's good; at least it's something. Should I try using that to refer to the decade that we're in? Or should I wait and see what Charles Osgood uses?
As for your Montreal waiter, I have trouble getting people to understand clearly what I'm saying at MacDonalds in English. But here it may just be due to people not bothering to pay attention!
Well, this place was two or three steps up from McDonald's. And I can't remember the last time I've been in a McDonald's, but I know what you mean.
ReplyDeleteI was in a diner-ish restaurant once, when the person ordering before me answered all the prompts: Fries or mashed? Soup or salad? What kind of dressing? Anything to drink?
When it was my turn, I said, "I'd like [whatever], please. With mashed potatoes, salad with blue cheese dressing, and an iced tea."
The waitress replied, "Fries or mashed?", and continued with each question in turn.
No buffer.