2010
John Holmes
Have a good one everybody!
--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au
James Hogg
> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
We'll know in ten year's time, when we have the benefit of hindsight.
> Have a good one everybody!
My sentiments exactly!
--
James
Peter Moylan
> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
> Have a good one everybody!
>
some sleep. Good night, everyone.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Steve Hayes
>John Holmes wrote:
>> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
>
>We'll know in ten year's time, when we have the benefit of hindsight.
We've had the benefit of foresight, with everyone talking about the World Cup
for the last 6 years, and they all say twenty-ten.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Jeffrey Turner
> On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:08:31 +0100, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>
>> John Holmes wrote:
>>> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
>> We'll know in ten year's time, when we have the benefit of hindsight.
>
> We've had the benefit of foresight, with everyone talking about the World Cup
> for the last 6 years, and they all say twenty-ten.
Whoosh!
--Jeff
--
The comfort of the wealthy has always
depended upon an abundant supply of
the poor. --Voltaire
John Varela
wrote:
> On 01/01/10 00:02, John Holmes wrote:
> > It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
> > Have a good one everybody!
> >
> Heck, is it January already? I left a party early so that I could get
> some sleep. Good night, everyone.
Two seconds after midnight... Happy New Year. Still just over 12
hours to go here.
--
John Varela
Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email
Mark Brader
> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
This was posted just after 8 am EST. I deduce that John mostly hears
from people in eastern Australia, New Zealand, or some such time zone.
--
Mark Brader "I suppose that the distances from us [to the
Toronto stars] vary so much that some are two or three
m...@vex.net times as remote as others." -- Galileo
Robert Bannister
> John Holmes:
>> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
>
> This was posted just after 8 am EST. I deduce that John mostly hears
> from people in eastern Australia, New Zealand, or some such time zone.
Your post says "2:22 AM" on my computer. It is 8:16 AM here.
--
Rob Bannister
annily
> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
> Have a good one everybody!
>
I still hear some people on TV here saying "two thousand and ten". I
reckon we should have been using the "twenty" form since 2001 ("twenty
oh one"). After all, I've never heard anyone say "one thousand nine
hundred (and) one".
--
Long-time resident of Adelaide, South Australia,
which may or may not influence my opinions.
Frank ess
Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 01/01/10 00:02, John Holmes wrote:
>> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so
>> far. Have a good one everybody!
>>
> Heck, is it January already? I left a party early so that I could
> get some sleep. Good night, everyone.
'night, John-boy.
Happy New Year to all.
--
Frank ess
Prai Jei
continuum:
> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
Thus speaks the BBC, apparently by internal directive.
> Have a good one everybody!
Blwyddyn newydd dda i chi eto.
--
ξ:) Proud to be curly
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
Prai Jei
continuum:
> Mark Brader wrote:
My boss has sent me emails today, dated February 2007. In said emails he was
wondering about funny orange lights which he (and I) had seen in the sky
over South Wales last night. Looks like the little green men (or their
strong-interaction quantum electrodynamic hyperdrive units) have warped the
space-time continuum in the vicinity of his PC.
Jonathan Morton
news:001c3250$0$2234$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
> John Holmes wrote:
>> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
>> Have a good one everybody!
>
> I still hear some people on TV here saying "two thousand and ten". I
> reckon we should have been using the "twenty" form since 2001 ("twenty oh
> one"). After all, I've never heard anyone say "one thousand nine hundred
> (and) one".
I'm with you 100%. And I suspect 2010 (three syllables only, after all) will
be when the "twenty-whatever" form finally wins the day.
Regards
Jonathan
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
>John Holmes wrote:
>> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
>> Have a good one everybody!
>>
>
>I still hear some people on TV here saying "two thousand and ten". I
>reckon we should have been using the "twenty" form since 2001 ("twenty
>oh one"). After all, I've never heard anyone say "one thousand nine
>hundred (and) one".
I speculated about a decade ago that the "twenty" style would take time
to catch on. For the whole of our lives we had been accustomed to the
idea that a number spoken as "nineteen..." (or any other "-teen") might
be a year. We had no acclimatisation to year numbers beginning "two
thousand" or "twenty". Or brains simply had not internalised that
possibility. That is why when referring to the year after nineteen
ninety nine we called it "the year two thousand".
In English the traditional full version of a year number would be in the
form "The year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety nine". "Nineteen
ninety nine" is a heavily ellided version of that. As I said above we
are accustomed to recognising the short (-teen) forms as years.
There is another point: In MyEnglish I would say the year 1999 as
"nineteen ninety nine" but I'd say the number 1999 (1,999) as "one
thousand nine hundred (and) ninety nine". That helps to distinguish year
numbers from other numbers.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Bertel Lund Hansen
> I speculated about a decade ago that the "twenty" style would take time
> to catch on. For the whole of our lives we had been accustomed to the
> idea that a number spoken as "nineteen..." (or any other "-teen") might
> be a year. We had no acclimatisation to year numbers beginning "two
> thousand" or "twenty". Or brains simply had not internalised that
> possibility. That is why when referring to the year after nineteen
> ninety nine we called it "the year two thousand".
I don't agree. There was a battle at Hastings in 1066. Would you
read that as "ten (hundred) sixtysix"? I wouldn't.
When reading numbers - in English or Danish - I say "x thousand"
if the second digit is a zero, but "xx hundred" if it is not.
--
Bertel, Denmark
John Holmes
> John Holmes wrote:
>> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
>> Have a good one everybody!
>>
>
> I still hear some people on TV here saying "two thousand and ten". I
> reckon we should have been using the "twenty" form since 2001 ("twenty
> oh one"). After all, I've never heard anyone say "one thousand nine
> hundred (and) one".
'Two thousand and ten" seems to be the more formal version.
I think the 2000s have been a bit different from previous centuries
because 'two thousand and ...' is relatively easy to say compared to
'one thousand nine hundred and...' I'm not quite sure why 2010 is the
tipping point when the majority of people are swapping from the 'two
thousand and ...' form to the 'twenty-...' form. Maybe there was
something of an aversion to saying an 'oh' or 'zero' before the single
digits, though that didn't stop people saying 'nineteen-oh-nine'.
Donna Richoux
>
> I don't agree. There was a battle at Hastings in 1066. Would you
> read that as "ten (hundred) sixtysix"? I wouldn't.
>
> When reading numbers - in English or Danish - I say "x thousand"
> if the second digit is a zero, but "xx hundred" if it is not.
People are going to be falling all over themselves to say you chose a
clearcut example for the other side. "Ten sixty-six" is definitely the
way we remember the Battle of Hastings. There's a humorous book, and a
play:
Ten sixty-six and all that: A memorable history of England. Comprising,
all the parts you can remember including one hundred and three good
things, five bad kings, and two genuine dates. Walter Carruthers Sellar.
[Pub.] - Methuen 1930
Ten Sixty-Six And All That (Libretto)
Book and lyrics by Reginald Arkell, from the Memorable History of the
same name by W.C. Seller and R.J. Yeatman. Music by Alfred Reynolds
Musical - Full Length
... Produced at the Strand Theatre, London, 1935
It's possible that the actual book cover or theater programme has 1066,
I don't find any pictures, but those who catalog titles with numbers
often like to spell them out.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Peter Moylan
> Peter Duncanson (BrE) skrev:
>
>> I speculated about a decade ago that the "twenty" style would take time
>> to catch on. For the whole of our lives we had been accustomed to the
>> idea that a number spoken as "nineteen..." (or any other "-teen") might
>> be a year. We had no acclimatisation to year numbers beginning "two
>> thousand" or "twenty". Or brains simply had not internalised that
>> possibility. That is why when referring to the year after nineteen
>> ninety nine we called it "the year two thousand".
>
> I don't agree. There was a battle at Hastings in 1066. Would you
> read that as "ten (hundred) sixtysix"? I wouldn't.
"Ten sixty six" is the _only_ way I've ever heard that date pronoounced.
> When reading numbers - in English or Danish - I say "x thousand"
> if the second digit is a zero, but "xx hundred" if it is not.
--
Bertel Lund Hansen
> 'one thousand nine hundred and...' I'm not quite sure why 2010 is the
> tipping point when the majority of people are swapping from the 'two
> thousand and ...' form to the 'twenty-...' form.
I don't think the twenty-form will survise. I think the second
digit decides the pronunciation.
> Maybe there was
> something of an aversion to saying an 'oh' or 'zero' before the single
> digits, though that didn't stop people saying 'nineteen-oh-nine'.
In Danish we read years like "nineteen twentyeight", but if the
third digit is a zero we use "hundred": "nineteen hundred (and)
nine".
--
Bertel, Denmark
Donna Richoux
We found in previous threads that there was a difference in the way
people said years at the time, and the way they said them later,
although I can't remember how solid the evidence was. There could be a
backwash -- once people get used to saying "twenty-ten" and so on, it
will be easier to say "twenty-oh-nine" or "twenty-nine" or whatever.
HVS
> annily wrote:
>> John Holmes wrote:
>>> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard
>>> so far. Have a good one everybody!
>>>
>>
>> I still hear some people on TV here saying "two thousand and
>> ten". I reckon we should have been using the "twenty" form
>> since 2001 ("twenty oh one"). After all, I've never heard
>> anyone say "one thousand nine hundred (and) one".
>
> 'Two thousand and ten" seems to be the more formal version.
>
> I think the 2000s have been a bit different from previous
> centuries because 'two thousand and ...' is relatively easy to
> say compared to 'one thousand nine hundred and...' I'm not quite
> sure why 2010 is the tipping point when the majority of people
> are swapping from the 'two thousand and ...' form to the
> 'twenty-...' form.
For me, I think it's a mind's-eye thing.
The double-zero is a strong mental image, and makes the figures
from 2001 to 2009 break down as "3 digits + 1 digit"; with 2010,
the break is more obviously "2 digits + 2 digits".
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
Bertel Lund Hansen
> People are going to be falling all over themselves to say you chose a
> clearcut example for the other side. "Ten sixty-six" is definitely the
> way we remember the Battle of Hastings. There's a humorous book, and a
> play:
Oh well, I just learned something new. It must be my Danish habit
then that tricked me (and the fact that I didn't check before
writing).
--
Bertel, Denmark
Peter Moylan
Peter Moylan
> The double-zero is a strong mental image, and makes the figures
> from 2001 to 2009 break down as "3 digits + 1 digit"; with 2010,
> the break is more obviously "2 digits + 2 digits".
The double zero is also a hard habit to break, I've just discovered.
Today I had to tidy up some work files in order to hand them over to a
colleague while I'm away, and I discovered that on a couple of them I
had written the "Date last modified" as "1 January 20010".
Nick
> For me, I think it's a mind's-eye thing.
>
> The double-zero is a strong mental image, and makes the figures
> from 2001 to 2009 break down as "3 digits + 1 digit"; with 2010,
> the break is more obviously "2 digits + 2 digits".
That's new to me, but I like it as an explanation. It explains why we
did it a lot less with the 19s.
--
Online waterways route planner | http://canalplan.eu
Plan trips, see photos, check facilities | http://canalplan.org.uk
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<splittemi...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>Peter Duncanson (BrE) skrev:
>
>> I speculated about a decade ago that the "twenty" style would take time
>> to catch on. For the whole of our lives we had been accustomed to the
>> idea that a number spoken as "nineteen..." (or any other "-teen") might
>> be a year. We had no acclimatisation to year numbers beginning "two
>> thousand" or "twenty". Or brains simply had not internalised that
>> possibility. That is why when referring to the year after nineteen
>> ninety nine we called it "the year two thousand".
>
>I don't agree. There was a battle at Hastings in 1066. Would you
>read that as "ten (hundred) sixtysix"? I wouldn't.
>
No. I was restricting my comments to the teen centuries prior to 2000.
>When reading numbers - in English or Danish - I say "x thousand"
>if the second digit is a zero, but "xx hundred" if it is not.
That used to be customary in BrE. I'm not sure that is is any more. I
wasn't aware of a possible change until the last few years. The reason I
say that is that when watching US News programs on CBS and ABC I find
that I'm "pulled up short" by the style you mentioned. A newsreader will
refer to something as having increased from, say, "eighteen hundred", to
"two thousand" and then to "twenty-one hundred".
It is the mixture of the "hundred" style with the "thousand" style that
is noticeable. I would express those values as "one thousand eight
hundred", "two thousand" and "two thousand one hundred".
I'll be interested to see what others have to say about this.
James Hogg
In your defence I can say that people used to say it that way in
English, as this example at Google Books shows:
And I found a "poem" from 1819 with these lines:
"Saxon Edward, the Confessor, Ethelred's son
Was made king in one thousand and forty-one.
In one thousand and sixty-six became king
Second Harold, whose rashness his ruin did bring."
See also
http://tinyurl.com/yegozls
--
James
Bertel Lund Hansen
> It is the mixture of the "hundred" style with the "thousand" style that
> is noticeable. I would express those values as "one thousand eight
> hundred", "two thousand" and "two thousand one hundred".
I discussed pronunciation with my math classes when I was working
as a teacher (grade 1 to 9). I taught them that both styles were
okay, and I didn't demand consistency with one at the time. I
never thought of that 'problem' till now. I think the reason is
that we in Danish switch between the two modes all the time.
--
Bertel, Denmark
HVS
> HVS <use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes:
>
>> For me, I think it's a mind's-eye thing.
>>
>> The double-zero is a strong mental image, and makes the figures
>> from 2001 to 2009 break down as "3 digits + 1 digit"; with
>> 2010, the break is more obviously "2 digits + 2 digits".
>
> That's new to me, but I like it as an explanation. It explains
> why we did it a lot less with the 19s.
I think the visual aspect might also help explain why we don't tend
to do it with the years 1001-1009 (where I'd be a bit surprised to
hear anything other than "ten-oh-something").
Living through the 200x years, we constantly saw and wrote the
digits; one doesn't, though, encounter 100x written down very often
-- it's just another decade from ancient history, with no "landmark
years" like 1016 or 1066 -- and the mind's-eye image is nowhere near
as strong.
R H Draney
>
>On 01/01/10 23:45, HVS wrote:
>
>> The double-zero is a strong mental image, and makes the figures
>> from 2001 to 2009 break down as "3 digits + 1 digit"; with 2010,
>> the break is more obviously "2 digits + 2 digits".
>
>The double zero is also a hard habit to break, I've just discovered.
>Today I had to tidy up some work files in order to hand them over to a
>colleague while I'm away, and I discovered that on a couple of them I
>had written the "Date last modified" as "1 January 20010".
Pronounced "twenty oh ten", innit?...
On the morning after Y2K, the local news portal website announced the date as
"January 1, 19100"....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
>Peter Moylan filted:
>>
>>On 01/01/10 23:45, HVS wrote:
>>
>>> The double-zero is a strong mental image, and makes the figures
>>> from 2001 to 2009 break down as "3 digits + 1 digit"; with 2010,
>>> the break is more obviously "2 digits + 2 digits".
>>
>>The double zero is also a hard habit to break, I've just discovered.
>>Today I had to tidy up some work files in order to hand them over to a
>>colleague while I'm away, and I discovered that on a couple of them I
>>had written the "Date last modified" as "1 January 20010".
>
>Pronounced "twenty oh ten", innit?...
>
>On the morning after Y2K, the local news portal website announced the date as
>"January 1, 19100"....r
It was not alone.
There were some websites that continued to do that for months.
Mark Brader
> Somebody didn't read the documentation for the localtime() function:
>
> $year is the number of years since 1900, not just the last two
> digits of the year. That is, $year is 123 in year 2023...
That's for Perl, obviously, but its localtime() just copied the behavior
of the corresponding function in C, which has worked that way ever since
it was introduced on UNIX. In some other languages this sort of thing
has been less consistent -- the web-site problem that led to this
subthread was about conflicting versions of JavaScript. The troff
family of text formatters have, or had, or have had, a similar problem.
--
Mark Brader | "If communication becomes impossible, it is expected that
Toronto | both parties will... notify the other that communication
m...@vex.net | has become impossible..." --memo to university staff
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Stan Brown
>
> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
> Have a good one everybody!
I hope so. "Two thousand [and] whatever" never sounded right to me,
after half a century of "nineteen whatever".
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...
John Varela
wrote:
> I think the 2000s have been a bit different from previous centuries
> because 'two thousand and ...' is relatively easy to say compared to
> 'one thousand nine hundred and...' I'm not quite sure why 2010 is the
> tipping point when the majority of people are swapping from the 'two
> thousand and ...' form to the 'twenty-...' form. Maybe there was
> something of an aversion to saying an 'oh' or 'zero' before the single
> digits, though that didn't stop people saying 'nineteen-oh-nine'.
The 200x years were special because you couldn't pronounce one of
those years as twenty- anything without ambiguity. Now that we've
reached 2010 all ambiguity is removed and we are free to say
twenty-ten, twenty-eleven, etc.
--
John Varela
Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email
Mike Barnes
Am I missing something? I see no ambiguity in "twenty hundred", "twenty
oh one", etc, like "nineteen hundred", "nineteen oh one", etc.
--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England
Robert Bannister
So, you're really saying that you've discovered the human 2k bug.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
Nevertheless, with dates between 999 and 1010, people get very funny if
they have to say them aloud, so 1002 will probably be said as "one
thousand and two", but might come out as "ten oh two" depending on what
the speaker ate for breakfast that day.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> On 01/01/10 23:25, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>> Peter Duncanson (BrE) skrev:
>>
>>> I speculated about a decade ago that the "twenty" style would take time
>>> to catch on. For the whole of our lives we had been accustomed to the
>>> idea that a number spoken as "nineteen..." (or any other "-teen") might
>>> be a year. We had no acclimatisation to year numbers beginning "two
>>> thousand" or "twenty". Or brains simply had not internalised that
>>> possibility. That is why when referring to the year after nineteen
>>> ninety nine we called it "the year two thousand".
>> I don't agree. There was a battle at Hastings in 1066. Would you
>> read that as "ten (hundred) sixtysix"? I wouldn't.
>
> "Ten sixty six" is the _only_ way I've ever heard that date pronoounced.
Moreover, it's the only date from British history that anyone ever
remembers.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
After teaching my French classes for years that the "only" way to say
dates in French was with the "thousand nine hundred" style, I then kept
coming across French people who said "nineteen hundred". You can't win,
especially with native speakers.
--
Rob Bannister
Steve Hayes
I pronounce 1909 as "nineteen-nine", though I don't know how people cack then
pronounced it.
But "twenty-nine" doesn't work because it could be mistaken for 29 rather than
2009.
"Twenty-ten", like "Nineteen-nine" is not ambiguous.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
annily
> John Holmes skrev:
>
>> 'one thousand nine hundred and...' I'm not quite sure why 2010 is the
>> tipping point when the majority of people are swapping from the 'two
>> thousand and ...' form to the 'twenty-...' form.
>
> I don't think the twenty-form will survise. I think the second
> digit decides the pronunciation.
>
Bets, anyone? I reckon "twenty ten" etc. will survive.
--
Long-time resident of Adelaide, South Australia,
which may or may not influence my opinions.
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>Steve Hayes wrote:
>> On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:08:31 +0100, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> John Holmes wrote:
>>>> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
>>> We'll know in ten year's time, when we have the benefit of hindsight.
>>
>> We've had the benefit of foresight, with everyone talking about the World Cup
>> for the last 6 years, and they all say twenty-ten.
>
>Whoosh!
For the last six years people here have been talking about "twenty-ten" -- on
radio, on TV, and in casual conversation.
Will our football team be ready for 2010? (probably not)
Will the stadiums be completed in time? (probably)
Will we be able to drive on roads that aren't being dug up for 2010? (Let's
hope so)
And in every case, people have been saying "twenty-ten", and not "two thouand
and ten". Now that 2010 has arrived, they'll probably continue to do so.
qquito
> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
>
> Regards
> John
> for mail: my initials plus a u e
> at tpg dot com dot au
Interestingly, in Chinese, they read years digit-by-digit. For
instance, 1998 is read as "Yi Jiu Jiu Ba" (literally, "One Nine Nine
Eight"), 2003 as "Er Ling Ling San" (literally, "Two Zero Zero
Three"), 2010 as "Er Ling Yi Ling", and 890 as "Ba Jiu Ling". So the
reading of "2000" was never an issue when the year came. The reason
could be that the numbers 0 - 9 are all one-syllable in Chinese, and
the years do not sound ponderous when read digit-by-digit.
By the way, in Chinese, the numbers 0 - 9 are read Ling, Yi, Er, San,
Si, Wu, Liu, Qi, Ba, Jiu.
--Roland
Tasha Miller
> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
> Have a good one everybody!
I'vw been hearing (and saying) two thousand and ten more often than
twenty-ten up to this point. I had thought I'd drift effortlessly into the
shorter version but in the last couple of days I've realised I am going to
have make a conscious effort to make the change. So my New Year's
resolution and temporary mantra is going to be "twenty-ten, twenty-ten,
twenty-ten" until it finally feels right.
Bernard Salt the demographer reckons we aussies are too lazy not to adopt
the shorter 20 10 convention!
Roland Hutchinson
> John Holmes set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time
> continuum:
>
>> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
> Thus speaks the BBC, apparently by internal directive.
I wish the Earth Rotation Service would chime in with an opinion. It is,
after all, their ball...
--
Roland Hutchinson
He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )
Roland Hutchinson
Are you missing that some people don't like to put in the "oh". On that
system "nineteen one" works, but "twenty one" does not. Or was that your
point--that putting in the "oh" saves the ambiguity of the third-
millennium dates? (But even then, some people really, really don't like
putting in the "oh".)
Roland Hutchinson
> Peter Moylan filted:
>>
>>On 01/01/10 23:45, HVS wrote:
>>
>>> The double-zero is a strong mental image, and makes the figures from
>>> 2001 to 2009 break down as "3 digits + 1 digit"; with 2010, the break
>>> is more obviously "2 digits + 2 digits".
>>
>>The double zero is also a hard habit to break, I've just discovered.
>>Today I had to tidy up some work files in order to hand them over to a
>>colleague while I'm away, and I discovered that on a couple of them I
>>had written the "Date last modified" as "1 January 20010".
>
> Pronounced "twenty oh ten", innit?...
Hands up, all who have uttered that inadvertently at least once --
starting with me!
Roland Hutchinson
> John Holmes skrev:
>
>> 'one thousand nine hundred and...' I'm not quite sure why 2010 is the
>> tipping point when the majority of people are swapping from the 'two
>> thousand and ...' form to the 'twenty-...' form.
>
> I don't think the twenty-form will survise. I think the second digit
> decides the pronunciation.
>
>> Maybe there was
>> something of an aversion to saying an 'oh' or 'zero' before the single
>> digits, though that didn't stop people saying 'nineteen-oh-nine'.
>
> In Danish we read years like "nineteen twentyeight", but if the third
> digit is a zero we use "hundred": "nineteen hundred (and) nine".
It's interesting that "nineteen hundred (and) nine" works fine in
English, alongside the other forms (nineteen nine and nineteen oh nine).
But at 2000 we don't say "twenty hundred" for a number, or for a year. It
has to be "two thousand". (Same in Danish?). At "twenty-one hundred" we
can commence counting by hundreds again until we get to a whole number of
thousands again, at 3000 -- both for numbers in general and for years.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On 01/01/10 23:25, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>> Peter Duncanson (BrE) skrev:
>>
>>> I speculated about a decade ago that the "twenty" style would take
>>> time to catch on. For the whole of our lives we had been
>>> accustomed to the idea that a number spoken as "nineteen..." (or
>>> any other "-teen") might be a year. We had no acclimatisation to
>>> year numbers beginning "two thousand" or "twenty". Or brains
>>> simply had not internalised that possibility. That is why when
>>> referring to the year after nineteen ninety nine we called it "the
>>> year two thousand".
>>
>> I don't agree. There was a battle at Hastings in 1066. Would you
>> read that as "ten (hundred) sixtysix"? I wouldn't.
>
> "Ten sixty six" is the _only_ way I've ever heard that date
> pronoounced.
But apparently this has not always been the case:
William, Duke of Normandy, having overcome Harold in the battle of
Hastings, on the fourteenth day of October, one thousand and
sixty-six; ...
James Browne, _A History of the Highlands and of
the Highland Clans_, 1843
In the middle of the month of October, in the year one thousand
and sixty-six, the Normans and the English came front to front.
Franklin Thomas Baker, et al., _Sixth Year
Language Reader_, 1909
The Duke of Normandy landed in Sussex in the year one thousand and
sixty-six, after the birth of our blessed Saviour.
Walter Scott, _Tales of a Grandfather_, 1827
But considering afterwards, that, in consequence of his being
crowned king, all persons would be more afraid of rebelling
against him, and more easily crushed, if they did, he yielded to
the importunities of the English and Normans, and was crowned in
Westminster-abbey on Chrismas-day of the year one thousand and
sixty-six, not without the appearance and form of an election, or
free acknowledgement of his claim ...
_The Monthly Review_, July, 1767
William appear'd his claims to fix,
'Twas in one thousand sixty six,
And landing on the Sussex shore
With sixty thousand men or more
The vict'ry at Hastings gain'd,
And so the English crown obtain'd.
Harold, his rival, fighting well
Amidst the common slaughter fell.
Elizabeth Rowse, _Outlines of English History,
in Verse_, 1808
James Hogg
The Pennsylvania Disaster
'TWAS in the year of 1889, and in the month of June,
Ten thousand people met with a fearful doom,
By the bursting of a dam in Pennsylvania State,
And were burned, and drowned by the flood-- oh! pity their fate!
The Kessack Ferry-Boat Fatality
'Twas on Friday the 2nd of March, in the year of 1894,
That the Storm Fiend did loudly laugh and roar
Along the Black Isle and the Kessack Ferry shore,
Whereby six men were drowned, which their friends will deplore.
The Sunderland Calamity
'Twas in the town of Sunderland, and in the year of 1883,
That about 200 children were launch'd into eternity
While witnessing an entertainment in Victoria Hall,
While they, poor little innocents, to God for help did call.
The Great Yellow River Inundation In China
'Twas in the year of 1887, and on the 28th of September,
Which many people of Honan, in China, will long remember;
Especially those that survived the mighty deluge,
That fled to the mountains, and tops of trees, for refuge.
The Terrific Cyclone of 1893
'Twas in the year of 1893, and on the 17th and 18th of November,
Which the people of Dundee and elsewhere will long remember,
The terrific cyclone that blew down trees,
And wrecked many vessels on the high seas.
The Battle of Alexandria,
or the Reconquest of Egypt
It was on the 21st of March in the year of 1801,
The British were at their posts every man;
And their position was naturally very strong,
And the whole line from sea to lake was about a mile long.
--
James
Mike Barnes
>On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 23:48:22 +0000, Mike Barnes wrote:
>
>> John Varela <OLDl...@verizon.net>:
>>>On Fri, 1 Jan 2010 12:34:33 UTC, "John Holmes" <see...@instead.com>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think the 2000s have been a bit different from previous centuries
>>>> because 'two thousand and ...' is relatively easy to say compared to
>>>> 'one thousand nine hundred and...' I'm not quite sure why 2010 is the
>>>> tipping point when the majority of people are swapping from the 'two
>>>> thousand and ...' form to the 'twenty-...' form. Maybe there was
>>>> something of an aversion to saying an 'oh' or 'zero' before the single
>>>> digits, though that didn't stop people saying 'nineteen-oh-nine'.
>>>
>>>The 200x years were special because you couldn't pronounce one of those
>>>years as twenty- anything without ambiguity. Now that we've reached 2010
>>>all ambiguity is removed and we are free to say twenty-ten,
>>>twenty-eleven, etc.
>>
>> Am I missing something? I see no ambiguity in "twenty hundred", "twenty
>> oh one", etc, like "nineteen hundred", "nineteen oh one", etc.
>
>Are you missing that some people don't like to put in the "oh". On that
>system "nineteen one" works, but "twenty one" does not.
Thanks, that's exactly what I was missing. I don't think I've ever heard
"nineteen one", and it sounds so bizarre to me, I'm pretty sure I'd have
remembered. Perhaps it's a leftpondian thing, like "nineteen hundred
one".
In any event, John said "you couldn't ... without ambiguity", whereas in
fact you can, but it seems that some people prefer not to.
HVS
> Roland Hutchinson <my.sp...@verizon.net>:
>> On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 23:48:22 +0000, Mike Barnes wrote:
>>
>>> Am I missing something? I see no ambiguity in "twenty
>>> hundred", "twenty oh one", etc, like "nineteen hundred",
>>> "nineteen oh one", etc.
>>
>> Are you missing that some people don't like to put in the "oh".
>> On that system "nineteen one" works, but "twenty one" does
>> not.
>
> Thanks, that's exactly what I was missing. I don't think I've
> ever heard "nineteen one", and it sounds so bizarre to me, I'm
> pretty sure I'd have remembered.
Same here; I'm sure I'd notice if someone dropped the "oh" in such
dates -- "Edward VII came to the throne in nineteen-one" sounds
deeply strange to my ear.
> Perhaps it's a leftpondian thing, like "nineteen hundred one".
I certainly don't recall hearing it when I lived in Canada;
indeed, the comic oldster's way of saying it was to drop the
century rather than the zero ("It was back in aught-one").
>
> In any event, John said "you couldn't ... without ambiguity",
> whereas in fact you can, but it seems that some people prefer
> not to.
>
--
Steve Hayes
>Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>> William appear'd his claims to fix,
>> 'Twas in one thousand sixty six,
>> And landing on the Sussex shore
>> With sixty thousand men or more
>> The vict'ry at Hastings gain'd,
>> And so the English crown obtain'd.
>> Harold, his rival, fighting well
>> Amidst the common slaughter fell.
>>
>> Elizabeth Rowse, _Outlines of English History,
>> in Verse_, 1808
>>
>No one does that historical stuff like William Topaz McGonagall:
>
>
>The Pennsylvania Disaster
>
>'TWAS in the year of 1889, and in the month of June,
>Ten thousand people met with a fearful doom,
>By the bursting of a dam in Pennsylvania State,
>And were burned, and drowned by the flood-- oh! pity their fate!
And then there was this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Year_2525
Peter Moylan
> On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 11:12:47 +0000, Prai Jei wrote:
>
>> John Holmes set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time
>> continuum:
>>
>>> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so far.
>> Thus speaks the BBC, apparently by internal directive.
>
> I wish the Earth Rotation Service would chime in with an opinion. It is,
> after all, their ball...
>
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Bertel Lund Hansen
> But at 2000 we don't say "twenty hundred" for a number, or for a year. It
> has to be "two thousand". (Same in Danish?). At "twenty-one hundred" we
> can commence counting by hundreds again until we get to a whole number of
> thousands again, at 3000 -- both for numbers in general and for years.
It's precisely the same in Danish. I believe that Swedes however
say "tjugohundra" .
--
Bertel, Denmark
Nick
> Roger Burton West:
>> Somebody didn't read the documentation for the localtime() function:
>>
>> $year is the number of years since 1900, not just the last two
>> digits of the year. That is, $year is 123 in year 2023...
>
> That's for Perl, obviously, but its localtime() just copied the behavior
> of the corresponding function in C, which has worked that way ever since
> it was introduced on UNIX. In some other languages this sort of thing
> has been less consistent -- the web-site problem that led to this
> subthread was about conflicting versions of JavaScript. The troff
> family of text formatters have, or had, or have had, a similar problem.
I do wonder if it did behave like that from the start? "Years since
1900" is of no use, except for printing as a two digit date year when
used before 2000.
I strongly suspect it was introduced as a two digit year field, then
someone realised (probably not that long after it was introduced, but
after it had become too widespread and used to change it) the problem
and it was redefined to be y-1900 rather than y mod 100.
--
Online waterways route planner | http://canalplan.eu
Plan trips, see photos, check facilities | http://canalplan.org.uk
Stan Brown
> The 200x years were special because you couldn't pronounce one of
> those years as twenty- anything without ambiguity.
Huh? Where's the ambiguity in "twenty-oh-one", "twenty-oh-four", etc?
Those are formed in the same way as years in the first decade the the
twentieth century, and I don't think anyone was bothered by
"nineteen-oh-one" and so forth.
Language isn't strictly logical, and I know my preference for
"twenty-oh-one" puts me in a small minority. But I don't see how you
can call it ambiguous.
Stan Brown
<my.sp...@verizon.net>:
> "nineteen one" works, but "twenty one" does not.
When did anyone EVER say "nineteen one" to refer to the year 1901?
Stan Brown
@bigpond.com>:
> After teaching my French classes for years that the "only" way to
> say dates in French was with the "thousand nine hundred" style,
Out of curiosity, what gave you that idea?
> I then kept coming across French people who said "nineteen
> hundred".
I was taught in my first year of French by a native speaker, and in
my third and fourth years by teachers who always summered in France,
and it was always "dix-neuf cent soixante-treize", never "mille"
whatever.
Lars Enderin
Not all of us! I don't, and I think it's a silly idea. It was proposed
by Sture All�n, a Swedish-language professor, and somehow got
recommended officially. The basic premise was that he wanted a name for
2000-2099 which could not be mistaken for 2000-2999.
It's not very natural for us to say tjugo tio for 2010, either, so I'll
use the tv�tusentio form.
Bertel Lund Hansen
> > It's precisely the same in Danish. I believe that Swedes however
> > say "tjugohundra" .
> Not all of us! I don't, and I think it's a silly idea. It was proposed
> by Sture All�n, a Swedish-language professor, and somehow got
> recommended officially.
Oh. That must be what I have seen, or maybe it was quoted in the
Danish language group.
> It's not very natural for us to say tjugo tio for 2010, either, so I'll
> use the tv�tusentio form.
Im sort of glad that you have the same feeling for the numbers in
Swedish that we have in Danish. I actually think of Norwegian,
Swedish and Danish as three dialects of the same language.
--
Bertel, Denmark
James Silverton
> >> It's precisely the same in Danish. I believe that Swedes
> >> however say "tjugohundra" .
>> Not all of us! I don't, and I think it's a silly idea. It was
>> proposed by Sture All�n, a Swedish-language professor, and
>> somehow got recommended officially.
> Oh. That must be what I have seen, or maybe it was quoted in
> the Danish language group.
>> It's not very natural for us to say tjugo tio for 2010,
>> either, so I'll use the tv�tusentio form.
> Im sort of glad that you have the same feeling for the numbers
> in Swedish that we have in Danish. I actually think of
> Norwegian, Swedish and Danish as three dialects of the same
> language.
Well, they were once I guess. Anyway, aren't there four dialects if you
include Nynorsk and Bokm�l?
--
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
Bertel Lund Hansen
> > Im sort of glad that you have the same feeling for the numbers
> > in Swedish that we have in Danish. I actually think of
> > Norwegian, Swedish and Danish as three dialects of the same
> > language.
> Well, they were once I guess. Anyway, aren't there four dialects if you
> include Nynorsk and Bokm�l?
I think we can easily count twenty different Nordic languages if
we incorporate all variations. Apart from that, Nynorsk is pretty
much the same as Danish when written.
--
Bertel, Denmark
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>Sat, 2 Jan 2010 07:20:48 +0000 (UTC) from Roland Hutchinson
><my.sp...@verizon.net>:
>> "nineteen one" works, but "twenty one" does not.
>
>When did anyone EVER say "nineteen one" to refer to the year 1901?
Last week.
R H Draney
>
>Are you missing that some people don't like to put in the "oh". On that
>system "nineteen one" works, but "twenty one" does not. Or was that your
>point--that putting in the "oh" saves the ambiguity of the third-
>millennium dates? (But even then, some people really, really don't like
>putting in the "oh".)
"Twenty-One: A Blackjack Odyssey"?...r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Mike Lyle
> "annily" <ann...@annily.invalid> wrote in message
> news:001c3250$0$2234$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
>> John Holmes wrote:
>>> It seems to be twenty-ten according to most people I've heard so
>>
>> I still hear some people on TV here saying "two thousand and ten". I
>> reckon we should have been using the "twenty" form since 2001
>> ("twenty oh one"). After all, I've never heard anyone say "one
>> thousand nine hundred (and) one".
>
> I'm with you 100%. And I suspect 2010 (three syllables only, after
> all) will be when the "twenty-whatever" form finally wins the day.
>
I think "twenty-ten" etc is natural: it was, I suppose, only the
ambiguity of "twenty-one" etc that stopped us from doing it that way
from the start. (I don't like using "oh" in numbers, though I often do
when it's a telephone number.)
--
Mike.
Mike Barnes
>I think "twenty-ten" etc is natural: it was, I suppose, only the
>ambiguity of "twenty-one" etc that stopped us from doing it that way
>from the start. (I don't like using "oh" in numbers, though I often do
>when it's a telephone number.)
AAMOI how do you say the year 1901?
John Varela
<mikeb...@bluebottle.com> wrote:
> In any event, John said "you couldn't ... without ambiguity", whereas in
> fact you can, but it seems that some people prefer not to.
At this location "twenty-ten" is already standard use by everyone I
know and everyone I hear on the radio or TV. So all this discussion
is moot.
--
John Varela
Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email
James Hogg
It's Bokm�l that's close to Danish. To read Nynorsk it helps to know
Icelandic.
--
James
Bertel Lund Hansen
> > I think we can easily count twenty different Nordic languages if
> > we incorporate all variations. Apart from that, Nynorsk is pretty
> > much the same as Danish when written.
> It's Bokm�l that's close to Danish. To read Nynorsk it helps to know
> Icelandic.
Augh! I had just checked with Wikipedia, but I got the names
swapped in my posting.
I do not know Icelandic, but I have tried to follow the Norwegian
language group (which is now dead). It was very funny. I do not
exaggerate when I say that no two Norwegians wrote the same way.
But after a while I got more or less used to the specialities and
could follow the discussions.
--
Bertel, Denmark
Robin Bignall
<rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 01/01/10 23:25, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>>> Peter Duncanson (BrE) skrev:
>>>
>>>> I speculated about a decade ago that the "twenty" style would take time
>>>> to catch on. For the whole of our lives we had been accustomed to the
>>>> idea that a number spoken as "nineteen..." (or any other "-teen") might
>>>> be a year. We had no acclimatisation to year numbers beginning "two
>>>> thousand" or "twenty". Or brains simply had not internalised that
>>>> possibility. That is why when referring to the year after nineteen
>>>> ninety nine we called it "the year two thousand".
>>> I don't agree. There was a battle at Hastings in 1066. Would you
>>> read that as "ten (hundred) sixtysix"? I wouldn't.
>>
>> "Ten sixty six" is the _only_ way I've ever heard that date pronoounced.
>
>Moreover, it's the only date from British history that anyone ever
>remembers.
1953, coronation. To a lot of the people on Usenet that's ancient
history.
--
Robin
(BrE)
Herts, England
Mike Barnes
>On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 10:03:38 UTC, Mike Barnes
><mikeb...@bluebottle.com> wrote:
>
>> In any event, John said "you couldn't ... without ambiguity", whereas in
>> fact you can, but it seems that some people prefer not to.
>
>At this location "twenty-ten" is already standard use by everyone I
>know and everyone I hear on the radio or TV. So all this discussion
>is moot.
But you were talking of the other 200x years, not 2010.
Mike Lyle
"Nineteen-one".
--
Mike.
Mark Brader
>>> $year is the number of years since 1900, not just the last two
>>> digits of the year. That is, $year is 123 in year 2023...
Mark Brader:
>> That's for Perl, obviously, but its localtime() just copied the behavior
>> of the corresponding function in C, which has worked that way ever since
>> it was introduced on UNIX. In some other languages this sort of thing
>> has been less consistent...
Nick Atty:
> I do wonder if it did behave like that from the start? "Years since
> 1900" is of no use, except for printing as a two digit date year when
> used before 2000.
In other words, it's exactly what you want for the foreseeable future,
i.e. until 1980 or so. And as a bonus, it provides more information
after that.
> I strongly suspect it was introduced as a two digit year field,
What do you think this is, COBOL? It's an int, not a "field" with
some number of digits.
> then someone realised ... the problem and it was redefined to be
> y-1900 rather than y mod 100.
But why would you imagine they'd compute it the hard way when the
easy way gives the same result for the foreseeable future and
provides more information after that?
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Most people are other people. Their thoughts
m...@vex.net | are someone else's opinions..." --Oscar Wilde
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Robert Bannister
I only remember that date because I was there, standing in the drizzle
behind a seven foot policeman. I doubt many young people know that date.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> Sat, 02 Jan 2010 08:19:38 +0800 from Robert Bannister <robban1
> @bigpond.com>:
>> After teaching my French classes for years that the "only" way to
>> say dates in French was with the "thousand nine hundred" style,
>
> Out of curiosity, what gave you that idea?
I still think most French people use the "mille neuf cent..." method,
but I'll let Isabelle decide.
>
>> I then kept coming across French people who said "nineteen
>> hundred".
>
> I was taught in my first year of French by a native speaker, and in
> my third and fourth years by teachers who always summered in France,
> and it was always "dix-neuf cent soixante-treize", never "mille"
> whatever.
>
--
Rob Bannister
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
I too was there, but I do sometimes have to dredge my braincells for the
date.
1951 comes to mind easily. It was the year of the Festival of Britain.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Skitt
> Mike Barnes wrote:
>>> I think "twenty-ten" etc is natural: it was, I suppose, only the
>>> ambiguity of "twenty-one" etc that stopped us from doing it that way
>>> from the start. (I don't like using "oh" in numbers, though I often
>>> do when it's a telephone number.)
>>
>> AAMOI how do you say the year 1901?
>
> "Nineteen-one".
That was the year my dad was born, and it was definitely nineteen-oh-one.
--
Skitt (AmE)
Steve Hayes
My dad was born in 1907, and it was definitely "nineteen-seven", and my mum
was born in 1910 and it was definitely "nineteen-ten".
Chuck Riggs
That, since you left out the zero, is screwy. Naturally enough, IMO, I
say nineteen-oh-one. Could this be an AmE, BrE thing?
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs,
An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE
Chuck Riggs
As I recall, I watched the event on the family's new Magnovox TV.
James Hogg
> On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 22:16:27 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
> <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Mike Barnes wrote:
>>> Mike Lyle <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>:
>>>> I think "twenty-ten" etc is natural: it was, I suppose, only
>>>> the ambiguity of "twenty-one" etc that stopped us from doing it
>>>> that way from the start. (I don't like using "oh" in numbers,
>>>> though I often do when it's a telephone number.)
>>> AAMOI how do you say the year 1901?
>> "Nineteen-one".
>
> That, since you left out the zero, is screwy. Naturally enough, IMO,
> I say nineteen-oh-one. Could this be an AmE, BrE thing?
No. I say nineteen-oh-one as well, but I would guess that the difference
is between an older "nineteen-one" and a more recent "nineteen-oh-one".
It's hard to check, however, what people actually said when they wrote
1901. Those who took the trouble to write it in words (as in legal
documents) used even longer forms, like "nineteen hundred and one"
--
James
ke...@cam.ac.uk
James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>
>No. I say nineteen-oh-one as well, but I would guess that the difference
>is between an older "nineteen-one" and a more recent "nineteen-oh-one".
>It's hard to check, however, what people actually said when they wrote
>1901. Those who took the trouble to write it in words (as in legal
>documents) used even longer forms, like "nineteen hundred and one"
My father-in-law (b.1902) said, when we discussed this in 2002, that they
normally used to use the long form even in speech - nineteen hundred
and four, for example. He thought they might sometimes have said
"nineteen-oh-four", but was quite sure they never said "nineteen-four".
Katy
Jonathan Morton
news:hhqgfe$7bo$1...@smaug.linux.pwf.cam.ac.uk...
"Dayton, Ohio" in the Yale Song Book (or is it "Songbook"? - I haven't got
a copy to hand) certainly has "on a sunny Sunday afternoon in
nineteen-oh-three". I think it has "nineteen hundred and three" elsewhere in
the song also. I'm not sure when that one was written.
Regards
Jonathan
James Hogg
Randy Newman wrote it and recorded it on an album released in 1972.
--
James
Steve Hayes
>On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 22:16:27 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
><mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Mike Barnes wrote:
>>> Mike Lyle <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>:
>>>> I think "twenty-ten" etc is natural: it was, I suppose, only the
>>>> ambiguity of "twenty-one" etc that stopped us from doing it that way
>>>> from the start. (I don't like using "oh" in numbers, though I often
>>>> do when it's a telephone number.)
>>>
>>> AAMOI how do you say the year 1901?
>>
>>"Nineteen-one".
>
>That, since you left out the zero, is screwy. Naturally enough, IMO, I
>say nineteen-oh-one. Could this be an AmE, BrE thing?
Dunno, since I'm neither.
Skitt
> "Skitt" wrote:
>> Mike Lyle wrote:
>>> Mike Barnes wrote:
>>>> Mike Lyle wrote:
>>>>> I think "twenty-ten" etc is natural: it was, I suppose, only the
>>>>> ambiguity of "twenty-one" etc that stopped us from doing it that
>>>>> way from the start. (I don't like using "oh" in numbers, though I
>>>>> often do when it's a telephone number.)
>>>>
>>>> AAMOI how do you say the year 1901?
>>>
>>> "Nineteen-one".
>>
>> That was the year my dad was born, and it was definitely
>> nineteen-oh-one.
>
> My dad was born in 1907, and it was definitely "nineteen-seven", and
> my mum was born in 1910 and it was definitely "nineteen-ten".
My mom was born in 1910 also, and I agree with "nineteen-ten"; what else
could it be?
--
Skitt (AmE)
Steve Hayes
Well if 1901 could be "nineteen oh one" then 1910 could be "nineteen one oh".
Skitt
> "Skitt" wrote:
>> Steve Hayes wrote:
>>> "Skitt" wrote:
>>>> Mike Lyle wrote:
>>>>> Mike Barnes wrote:
>>>>>> Mike Lyle wrote:
>>>>>>> I think "twenty-ten" etc is natural: it was, I suppose, only the
>>>>>>> ambiguity of "twenty-one" etc that stopped us from doing it that
>>>>>>> way from the start. (I don't like using "oh" in numbers, though
>>>>>>> I often do when it's a telephone number.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> AAMOI how do you say the year 1901?
>>>>>
>>>>> "Nineteen-one".
>>>>
>>>> That was the year my dad was born, and it was definitely
>>>> nineteen-oh-one.
>>>
>>> My dad was born in 1907, and it was definitely "nineteen-seven", and
>>> my mum was born in 1910 and it was definitely "nineteen-ten".
>>
>> My mom was born in 1910 also, and I agree with "nineteen-ten"; what
>> else could it be?
>
> Well if 1901 could be "nineteen oh one" then 1910 could be "nineteen
> one oh".
Oh. Well, yeah. I guess it could be. Unlikely, though.
--
Skitt (AmE)
Isabelle Cecchini
It's one of those questions that I don't really feel that qualified to
comment upon. I sadly lack data. I can only count on my own intuition,
and on what I can observe in myself and in the limited number of
speakers I have access to.
I've cunningly tried to rely on what I understand is a form of
experimental approach: asking my nearest and dearest rather cleverly
--as I thought-- phrased questions, such as "What is the year of your
birth again?" or "Do you know what year I was born?"
The response was disheartening. They gave me really funny looks. I
wonder why.
Checking on their knowledge of historical events was a bit more
successful, while asking them for their opinions of what the greatest
years for wine in the last century was disappointing (they answered 29
and 47).
In short, both forms, the one with "cent" and the one with" mille" are
used. There's a clear preference for "cent" when speaking about history.
When talking about Agincourt or the sack of Peking by Genghis Khan, the
usual form is "quatorze cent quinze", "douze cent quinze". The French
revolution occurred in "dix-sept cent quatre-vingt-neuf" for me and
those I asked, but "mille sept cent quatre-vingt-neuf" is not unheard
of. As for our good king Henri IV, he was King of France from "quinze
cent quatre-vingt-neuf" to "mille six cent dix". My informers
rationalized that "seize cent" was too difficult to pronounce.
Dates of no historic interest can follow one form or the other,
depending on the speaker.
--
Isabelle Cecchini
ke...@cam.ac.uk
James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>Jonathan Morton wrote:
>>
>> "Dayton, Ohio" in the Yale Song Book (or is it "Songbook"? - I haven't got
>> a copy to hand) certainly has "on a sunny Sunday afternoon in
>> nineteen-oh-three". I think it has "nineteen hundred and three" elsewhere in
>> the song also. I'm not sure when that one was written.
>
>Randy Newman wrote it and recorded it on an album released in 1972.
I thought "it must surely be older than that if it's in the Yale Song Book",
but realise it isn't in my 1952 edition, which is actually entitled "Songs of
Yale".
I also think it has "nineteen hundred and three" somewhere, but my copy isn't
handy.
Katy
John Varela
<mikeb...@bluebottle.com> wrote:
> John Varela <OLDl...@verizon.net>:
> >On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 10:03:38 UTC, Mike Barnes
> ><mikeb...@bluebottle.com> wrote:
> >
> >> In any event, John said "you couldn't ... without ambiguity", whereas in
> >> fact you can, but it seems that some people prefer not to.
> >
> >At this location "twenty-ten" is already standard use by everyone I
> >know and everyone I hear on the radio or TV. So all this discussion
> >is moot.
>
> But you were talking of the other 200x years, not 2010.
I was giving my reason for dropping out of this and similar threads.
Robert Bannister
> On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 16:10:35 -0800, "Skitt" <ski...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Mike Lyle wrote:
>>> Mike Barnes wrote:
>>>> Mike Lyle wrote:
>>>>> I think "twenty-ten" etc is natural: it was, I suppose, only the
>>>>> ambiguity of "twenty-one" etc that stopped us from doing it that way
>>>>> from the start. (I don't like using "oh" in numbers, though I often
>>>>> do when it's a telephone number.)
>>>> AAMOI how do you say the year 1901?
>>> "Nineteen-one".
>> That was the year my dad was born, and it was definitely nineteen-oh-one.
>
> My dad was born in 1907, and it was definitely "nineteen-seven", and my mum
> was born in 1910 and it was definitely "nineteen-ten".
>
>
Dad was born in "nineteen oh four" and Mum in "nineteen eleven". It
obviously varies from region to region and possibly from age to age.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
I have a horrible suspicion that somewhere, hidden away in a carton or a
drawer, I may have crown piece from the FoB. Ohmidog, I was only eleven
and they exposed me to that.
--
Rob Bannister
Mark Brader
>>> That's for Perl, obviously, but its localtime() just copied the behavior
>>> of the corresponding function in C, which has worked that way ever since
>>> it was introduced on UNIX.
Nick Atty:
>> I do wonder if it did behave like that from the start? "Years since
>> 1900" is of no use, except for printing as a two digit date year when
>> used before 2000.
Mark Brader:
> In other words, it's exactly what you want for the foreseeable future,
> i.e. until 1980 or so. And as a bonus, it provides more information
> after that. ... [and] why would you imagine they'd compute it the
> hard way...?
But I asked Dennis Ritchie to confirm it anyway. And he has: the
4th edition ("V4") UNIX manual, from October 1973, is the first one
to document any of this functionality, and, DMR tells me, "Ctime(3)
fills in the year as calendar year-1900 (not year%100)."
ObAUE: function names are case-sensitive. I wouldn't've capitalized
ctime() at the start of a sentence.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "After much soul-searching, the DMR decided to
m...@vex.net | go with UNIX." -- "/aur" magazine, April-May '89
Robert Bannister
> Robert Bannister a �crit :
Thank you. I think we are now adequately confused. I loved the funny
looks and the great wines.
--
Rob Bannister
Frank ess
In our family we have numerous Mexican hand-typed birth-registration
and marriage-registration documents wherein the year numbers are typed
"mil noveciento cuarenta y dos", por ejemplo.
--
Frank ess
Evan Kirshenbaum
> It's interesting that "nineteen hundred (and) nine" works fine in
> English, alongside the other forms (nineteen nine and nineteen oh
> nine).
>
> But at 2000 we don't say "twenty hundred" for a number, or for a
> year. It has to be "two thousand".
Depends on the number and the place:
Mr. JONES: Oh, yes, we had a lot of black doctors in the '20s, and
you go out here on Massachusetts Street, I wish I could recall the
number. We had a black doctor that built a beautiful home right
out there on I believe in the twenty-hundred block, beautiful
stucco home there. A. Dr. Cabell built that home. He came here
from somewhere. He built that home, but his health got bad and
finally he died. He passed away here in this town.
http://www.lawrence.lib.ks.us/oralhistory/4robert_jones.html
SMART: I don't remember Brooks. I think I knew him in the school,
but I don't remember him as a student. But Brooks and Doctor
Augustus Low left here. Oh, many, many outstanding
students. C.L. Smith who is the head of the HDC, some part of the
HDC over here on Delmar, has that office in the fifty hundred
block of Delmar; he was one of our students.
http://www.umsl.edu/~whmc/guides/t031.htm
I grew up in Chicago, and for references to blocks, at least, "twenty
hundred" sounds perfectly natural to me.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |If I may digress momentarily from
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |the mainstream of this evening's
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |symposium, I'd like to sing a song
|which is completely pointless.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Tom Lehrer
(650)857-7572
Mike Barnes
>Checking on their knowledge of historical events was a bit more
>successful, while asking them for their opinions of what the greatest
>years for wine in the last century was disappointing (they answered 29
>and 47).
How about good years for beer? I'm thinking of 1664 of course.
--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England