It may be the burning grammar question of the new decade. Do you call the new year “two thousand ten?” Or “twenty ten?”
NAGG, the National Association of Good Grammar, has adopted the year’s proper pronunciation as a pet cause, issuing a press release declaring that it should be pronounced “twenty ten.”
Who is NAGG to say so? NAGG, a group founded in 1986 by technical writer and writing teacher Tom Torriglia, is devoted to cleaning up grammar across the country. Torriglia routinely calls publications about grammatically incorrect ads.
Torriglia makes a cogent argument for his preferred pronunciation, “twenty ten.” He is quoted in an article in the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle, saying “The ‘20’ should have been pronounced ‘twenty’ all along… ‘Twenty’ follows ‘nineteen.’ ‘Two thousand’ does not follow ‘nineteen.’”
He’s got a point there.
Even so, four out of five random videos viewed by the Chronicle had people pronouncing it “two thousand ten.” I was too lazy to watch videos, so I decided to let my readers do the work. I set up a poll on Facebook and Twitter. My friends and followers were evenly split between the pronunciations. Does this mean I have a grammatically savvy network? Or is Tom’s crusade – launched just days after the new decade — already catching on?
SPOGG Says…
NAGG isn’t the only association devoted to proper grammar and I decided its international counterpart, SPOGG, deserved its own say in the matter.
I contacted Martha Brockenbrough, of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar and author of Things that Make Us [Sic]. Martha provided her own common-sense take on the pronunciation of 2010: “It doesn’t really matter,” she replied.
“We said nineteen-eighty and no one thought twice about it, though we probably should have thought twice about the shoulder pads and auto-tinting glasses. So twenty-ten is just fine. We also said “The Year 2000″ (insert ominous sound effects), so calling it two-thousand ten isn’t going to confuse anyone. And that’s really the point of thinking about language and what we call things. Is our meaning clear? Then huzzah!”
By the way, I love a grammar guru who can use the word “huzzah!” properly in a sentence.
My thoughts
I lean toward “twenty ten” because it’s easier to say. And apparently my family and friends are divided on the topic, so I won’t be some sort of linguistic outcast for my choice.
But when we get to next year, “twenty eleven” has that same awkward ring as “twenty – oh – nine,” which never caught on. It might be back to the “two thousands” once again.
Leaving poor Tom Torriglia cringing for another ten years.
While I agree that “twenty” follows “nineteen”, the year was actually “nineteen hundred and ninety nine” (e.g.), and was succeeded by “two thousand,” “two thousand and one,” et cetera. “Nineteen ninety nine” was a colloquial abbreviation of the full name and, while almost universally accepted, was indeed not a wholly correct moniker in the sequential numbering system of years. As “twenty ten” will likely become a commonly accepted term, if not THE term of reference, it is still an abbreviated version. Try writing a check for $2010 as “twenty ten and 00/100″ and observe how kindly the bank looks upon your business.
If ten sixty-six was good enough for William the Conqueror, then twenty ten is OK by me.
My 5 year old calls eleven, “one one”. So perhaps, given how awkward twenty eleven would sound we’ll call it twenty one one. Twenty twelve already sounds ok but in twenty thirteen we might go with twenty one three. I think Martha Brockenbrough has the point when it comes to grammatical indecision. The most important thing is if the person you’re communicating with understands what you’re saying/writing.
While I agree that “twenty-ten” is acceptable, I think that it should be personal preference. My leaning is toward “two-thousand-ten” over “twenty-ten” simply because we didn’t say “twenty-o-five” or “twenty-o-five” for 2005.
Sorry, I should have said “twenty-five” for 2005 in the last sentence, but the blog won’t let me edit my comment. =)