Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Happy Which Year?

Stop the presses!

That makes no sense in the Internet age, does it? But stop them anyway. June over at Bye-Bye Pie has alerted me to an all-important issue. Not just an everyday issue, right, June? Nor even an everyyear issue.

What will we be saying just a little over 24 hours from now? Hmmm? Or, more to the point, what should we be saying? Think about it.

Happy Two Thousand and Ten?

or

Happy Two Thousand Ten?

or

Happy Twenty Ten?

This happens to be the biggest year-changing issue we've had since Y2K; and I, for one, am appalled that our president is lolling on a beach in Hawaii rather than winging his way back to the Oval Office when this sort of controversy is raging. Does Obama really think that his Year-Naming Czar (he has one, doesn't he?) will bother to take care of this issue on his own? I mean, everyone knows (and by everyone, I mean this armchair president here) that phoning in from Hawaii just won't do. According to her, there's "a lot less pressure when the boss is away."

Honey, what do you think your supervisor thought when he read that line? Hmmm?

Personally? I can't imagine how a phone call from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES wouldn't be a pretty darn good motivating factor in and of itself. I'm a tad irresponsible myself when it comes to my household duties. Look in on me any afternoon around 4 PM and I'm goofing off checking out the latest at the Women's Colony whilst my children play unattended outside. Dinner's not a-cookin', laundry's not a-washin', g's are being dropped everywhere....

So! Let's imagine the phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Please hold for the President of the United States." (Sound of surf pounding in the background)

I'm thinking I would immediately get off the computer and haul my butt into the kitchen, don't you? I wouldn't wait for the guy (or maybe his wife) to show up at my door to start looking busy. But then again, Cabinet-level appointees probably aren't as responsible as little ol' me. Nope. Slackers, every one of them. As soon as Obama leaves town, I bet their feet are up on their desks and they're spending their workdays trolling Facebook for old high school sweethearts. That Clinton chick? She just looks like a self-starter.

Janet Napolitano probably didn't even know about the would-be terrorist airplane bombing until she was asked to be a Fan of Jasper Schuringa. When the cat's away...

So, Mr. President! You need to get back home and answer the question - which is it?

A. Two Thousand and Ten

B.
Two Thousand Ten

C.
Twenty Ten


Our country awaits your decision...

(Feel free to vote in the comments, you non-POTUSes out there)

33 comments:

  1. With the age of abreviations upon us, twenty ten will probably get it, which to the texting teens will become "twty10".

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  2. I don't think we can blame it on "the age" - did folks walk around a century ago saying "19 hundred and 10"? What we need to do is find a centenarian to set us straight.

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  3. How have I not been obsessing over this for the last week?! I prefer the more formal two thousand and ten, though I suspect two thousand ten will get more use. Where is an old geezer when you need one?!

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  4. I'm now worried that my computer won't know what to do. It doesn't have a good track record.

    I've been pre-scheduling posts for the first full week of January and I've already had one post show up in January 2009. You'd think the computer would set off an alarm about that! But maybe I expect too much...

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  5. I'll still be saying two thousand and nine because really, I don't adjust well to change.

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  6. Twenty-and-a well deserved-hang-10. Surf's up! (Wow, does that WaPo writer need a different job!)

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  7. My kids are saying twenty 10! For me it doesn't matter I will still be writting 2009 on checks for 6 months....

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  8. How odd that you posted this??? I was JUST thinking about this issue this very morning. Well, since it's 1:27 am right now, I guess that would make it yesterday but you get the point.

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  9. im just gonna go with freakin happy new year and let em figure out the year all on their own lol

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  10. I like twenty-ten myself. After all these years of saying two-thousand-and-, I'm looking forward to the shorter one!

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  11. My first thought was two thousand ten but I'm betting twenty ten will win out.

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  12. I don't have to worry about this until about June, which is when I'll finally start writing 2010 on my checks instead of 2009.

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  13. 20-10. I've already been saying it that way in my head anyway. The BIGGER issue to me is that we are getting all these decade retrospectives. Since when did we start counting from zero? The decade ends NEXT year. With ten.

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  14. I think twenty ten sounds the snappiest.

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  15. Well, I never said "Two thousand and nine" so I suppose I'll go with B. And as ever, you are FUN-NY!

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  16. My little brother is pushing for twenty ten. I figure us old fogeys (I'm 35) will be stuck saying two thousand ten (the 'and' is optional)

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  17. Even though it is incorrect I vote for Twenty-Ten. Sounds a little Smokey and the Bandit to me.

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  18. I think I've been saying 'two thousand and nine' because 'twenty-oh-nine' is not really shorter, and 'twenty-nine' sounds like '29', not '20-09'. But 'twenty-ten' is shorter, and just as clear.

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  19. No one ever names the year after they tell you Happy New Year. So there you have it.

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  20. Two thousand ten. I'm sure of it.

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  21. Ok, just for the record the only time you say "and" in a number is in place of the decimal point. For example $20.10 would be said twenty dollars AND ten cents, so 2010 has no "and" in it because there is no decimal point.

    I think the bigger question, my friends, is this: we have been saying '08 or '09 as in "oh eight" or "oh nine," what are we supposed to say now "oh ten?" or just "ten?" Neither sounds quite right. "Two thousand ten" sounds just too long. I think you're right. We DO need a presidential decision made here!

    Julie in PA

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  22. Twenty ten for me. I'm too tired to drag out all the syllables in "two thousand and ten".

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  23. I'm voting for twenty ten. Because I'm all about the short and quick. ;-)

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  24. Hahaha! This post amused me.
    I vote two thousand and ten, occasionally shortened to two thousand ten. Twenty ten is just wrong.

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  25. Twenty-ten works for me. :-)

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  26. I actually tried to reason this one out. My first though is that since we usually say "Two thousand and nine", that it will be two thousand and ten. But...when we say 1910, we don't say Nineteen and ten, we just say nineteen ten. So I'm guessing it will end up being twenty ten.

    My larger issue though, is what we are going to call the entire last decade. Time magazine called it "The Decade From Hell", and that seems about right to me.

    But, we older people (ahem) always refer back to the sixties, the seventies, the eighties. So what do we call the last decade? The 2000s? The zeros? The aughts? This is the issue that needs a presidential intervention. I need to know.

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  27. c. All the cool kids are doing it.

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  28. Twenty ten.

    And I'll bite the next person who says "oh-ten".

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  29. Yes - "oh-ten" is entirely unacceptable.

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  30. I was looking for things on the internet when I came across this website. I am appalled at your comment on the president taking a well deserved vacation in his birthplace of Hawaii! So everyone who works gets a vacation but the president doesn't? That is ridiculous. And look at all the days off Senators and Representatives have taken off yet they still get their big bucks salary! No complaints from you about that!

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    1. Oh, honey, read it again - that was sarcasm. I'm Obama's biggest fan. Look around the blog some more if you don't believe me - particularly November of 2008.

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