I have recently been asked why we say years the way we do. Why, for example, do we say nineteen hundred (1900) but two thousand (2000)? The recently released film 2012 (pronounced twenty twelve) has highlighted this question. ‘What will happen in the 22nd century?’, the questioner continued. ‘Will we be saying twenty one hundred and one (2101) or two thousand one hundred and one, or will we stick to twenty one oh one?’
Of course it is impossible to say how usage will change in the future. It is even hard to make reliable statements about current spoken usage without access to a very large corpus of spoken English, but I’ll have a go. My impression is that this confusion all started with the millennium, aka The Year Two Thousand (2000). Before that fateful year came along we all spoke happily of nineteen fifty five (1955) or twelve twenty one (1221) and no one thought anything of it (though years before 1000 did give us pause: I think we tend to say the year eight hundred (800), or eight hundred AD just to be clear that we are referring to a date and not just a number). But we say one thousand, two thousand, not ten hundred or twenty hundred, so it would sound a bit weird to say the year twenty hundred. People therefore became accustomed to referring to the year 2000 as two thousand, and having started on that path it maybe became difficult to switch back to the previous system. Most people have therefore stuck with two thousand and two (2002), two thousand and three (2003) etc, even though it is perfectly possible to say twenty oh two, twenty oh three (on the same pattern as 1902, which as far as I know is always said nineteen oh two). Indeed, if I remember rightly there was something of a campaign to get the latter form accepted on the grounds that it was more logical, and at least some (all?) BBC newsreaders say twenty oh nine (2009) rather than two thousand and nine.
For 2010 on it seems that most people are happy to say twenty ten (2010), twenty fifteen (2015) and so on, and it is hard to imagine that people in the future will say two thousand one hundred (2100) etc rather than twenty one hundred. We shall have to wait and see. Of course, since this and all other ways of numbering dates are the result of historical accident, it may be that future events will lead to a complete change in the way the years are both counted and said.
As for why this way of saying years arose in the first place, I suspect it is simply because it is easier and quicker – try saying 1777 both ways to see what I mean.
I’d be interested to hear your views on this topic.
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I suspect that the switch from the ‘old’ system to a new one at the year 2000 may have happened partly because of the significance of that year, i.e. the move from one millennium (now did I spell that correctly?) into another. As the years go by they lose something of that significance and the move back to the ‘old’ system comes quite naturally.
I tend to agree with you that most people will go for the double digit system (twenty one hundred and not two thousand one hundred). Mind you, non-native speakers might most probably “transfer” from their native tongue and use the extended form. Spanish, Portuguese and French speakers will be clear examples of that.
A couple more examples of how we say years. A friend came up with the song “In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)” – yes, really – by a duo called Zager and Evans, which was in the charts in 1969. I remember it, so that dates me as well as him. That’s said ‘twenty-five twenty-five’, of course. In the opposite corner is the Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this case I can’t imagine that anyone ever says anything other than ‘two thousand and one’.
“Two thousand” has three syllables; “twenty hundred” has four. “Twenty-oh-nine” has 4 syllables; “two-thousand-nine” has three (although “two-thousand-and-nine” has four).
On the other hand, “twenty-ten” has three syllables, and there is no other reasonable construction with as few. And if the evolution of English has proved nothing else, it’s that we are lazy speakers. There’s no contest: “twenty” beats out “two-thousand” for the remainder of the century.
Here’s somebody else wondering how we’re going to be calling the next decade: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/07/end-noughties-name-next-decade
Since we have started the decade changing the way of saying the years I think that we must continue it using the same form as we do it. It could be risky if we decide to change it now.
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I don’t think non-native speakers will “transfer” from their mother tongue. As a speaker of Portuguese I have never done that, and that’s probably because we learn how dates are said in English so we just get used to them. Why should/might it be different in the future? Each language has its own usage, and students are usually taught that.
I think every language on the earth has its own way to the other when it has been used for a long time . So does the English language because it’s easy for everybody to use in everyday activities to deal with other people. The numbers “one two three” become ” quanh tu ti” in Vietnamese, or the French words”dire/bavard” “dia/ba hoa” in Vietnamese. 2010 is translated in Vietnamese” hai ngan muoi”; 2011,”hai ngan muoi mot”( The Vietnamese phrase has four sounds while the English six syllables). But I agree that each language has each usage, in actual fact, when that usual langue gets its own way to connect to real life, it’ll change in the way it’ll do. In fact we needn’t worry about how we use the saying dates. Let them be done when they’re used.
How about Year 18 (for 2018)? Does that go down well?
“Year 18” could be used, if it is clear form the context, that you are not talking about year 18 AD. Granted, most often it is…
In my native language, Finnish, I have noticed I use “018” (“oh-eighteen”, without using the Finnish word for ‘year’) to make clear I mean 2018, not 18 AD. It seems everybody understands it intuitively.
If I said “vuonna kahdeksantoista” (“year 18”), that would strongly suggest I refer to year 18 AD.
Thanks for your comments, Jukka and Alexander.
In British English the issue is slightly clouded by the fact that we refer to school years in this way, so Year 1 – Year 13 would usually refer to that school year. I had a look in our corpus and Year 18 (or similar) is generally used to refer to the 18th year of a process rather than a calendar year, but there was a (very) small amount of evidence for this type of use. As with so many things, it will generally be clear from context what is meant, so as Jukka says, if it is clear you are talking about dates and you use Year 18 or 018, most people will indeed understand what you are referring to.
Hello Everyone,
I am an English teacher and recently, one of my students asked me exactly those questions which you have discussed above.
I could not really give a clear answer apart from “this is how it is said” 🙂
One detail remains: how do you say the number 0 in this example:
“Ethelweard was born in 904.”
Ninehundred-and-four OR nine-oh-four?
So: what about numbers below 1000 that have a zero in it? 308, 406, 606 ..
Hello Stefanie, I think both methods are acceptable. For a date I would instinctively go for nine-oh-four, whereas for numbers other than dates I would probably be more likely to say them in full. But I don’t think it’s a question of right and wrong, I think both are fine.
Is it right to say this year 1909 as nineteen zero nine?
How do we say telephone numbers in British and American English?
Thanks for your question, Johnson. I don’t think anyone says it this way, or at least I haven’t heard it said this way. We would usually say ‘nineteen oh nine’, or ‘nineteen hundred and nine’.
Thank you for your question. In British English we generally say ‘oh’ for 0, though some people say zero. In American English zero is more common. We usually say the numbers individually: so 0207 495 6572 would be oh two oh seven, four nine five, six five seven two. However if two of the same number come next to each other we may say ‘double’: 5288 – five two double eight.
When pronouncing the year 2019, should you say two thousand nineteen, two thousand and nineteen, or twenty nineteen? The last seems appropriate as that is the pattern years have always followed, even millennial ones. No one says the Battle of Hastings was in one thousand sixty -six, do they? Yet, you never hear anyone say twenty oh six, twenty twelve, or twenty nineteen. Any idea why?
Hello Robert. Actually I often hear people say twenty twelve, twenty nineteen and so on. Having said that, I think all the options you mention are possible, though you are right to say that no one says one thousand and sixty-six, or at least if they do I haven’t heard it.
2000 was the last year of the 2nd Millenium, and people say “Two Thousand”, nobody says “Twenty Hundred”, and 1000, being the last year of the 1st Millenium, it is almost always pronounced “One Thousand”, so I believe the rule is that all the last years of Milleniums should be pronounced “____ Thousand”.
However, I have heard the first year of the 3rd Millenium (2001), being pronounced as “Twenty oh One”, despite this becoming more popular, especially now, many do still often refer to it as “Two Thousand (and) One”, although, by at least 2030 or 2040, I suspect most people would have made the switch to “Twenty _ _”. What are your thoughts on this?
I hear both, though my impression is the same as yours, that twenty – etc is more commonly used these days. I don’t know if anyone has actually made a study of this, but I guess we will just have to wait and see, if we are still around by then.
Regarding the 1900s, people did say it different ways. 1905 for example was nineteen-oh-five, nineteen-hundred (&) five, and even nineteen-ought-five.
it’s 2020 now guys. “two thousand and twenty” or “two thousand twenty” or “twenty-twenty” or “two-oh-two-oh”. However you may say it, and whenever you’re reading this, just know that 2020 has not been a fun year.
@Nick Dale I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody say “two-oh-two-oh”, despite having the same syllables as “twenty-twenty”. “Two-oh-two-oh” also sound slower, as you need to raise your lip up (twice!) and people would have to spend more energy just for an effort, that is just not worth doing. By the way, 2020 may not be fun for most extroverted, but I’m pretty sure a lot of introverted would say otherwise :)) Ambiverts as always, will be ambivalent (see what I did there!)