What do we call this decade?
Some want to go with "the ohs", as in "oh-four". Or "the aughts", as in "aught-seven" or "thirty aught six". Others, like Ace, think we should go with "the nils".
I admit, "the nils" kinda has a ring to it. But I think we ought to go with whatever rolls best off the tongue, in actual usage. Let's try some test sentences.
"I can't remember -- did I meet that chick in oh-two? Oh-three?"Hm. Unintentionally, it seems that these labels have connotations. Or I've assigned them connotations. Oh: light and breezy. Aught: serious and potentially menacing. Nil: depressing. I'd go with "the ohs" based solely on this silly test."I was throwing up for days. It was the Great Food Poisoning of Aught-Seven."
"You think that was bad... things only got worse in nil-four."
There's one other possibility too -- my great-grandmother used to say she was born in "nineteen-three". No "aught" or "oh" or anything. And come to think of it, that's what I've been doing too -- "I moved to L.A. in two thousand one." Seems to make sense. And we'll probably keep doing that through the teens, because, let's face it: when the next pop fad in twenty years decides to cover "Hey Nineteen," they're going to run into issues with lines like "Way back when, in twelve..." Problematic.
Fun how you can waste twenty minutes writing about stuff like this. Hooray for blogging!
Posted by Matt at December 29, 2004 10:00 AM
