"Two-thousand and ten" or "twenty-ten"... how shall we pronounce it?
Tom Torriglia says it's the latter.
Torriglia, the public face of the National Association of Good Grammar (NAGG), told the San Francisco Chronicle:
" 'Twenty' follows 'nineteen.' 'Two thousand' does not follow 'nineteen.' It's logical."
But George Lakoff at U.C. Berkeley responds:
"It's not wrong to say 'two thousand ten.' And it's not like 'twenty ten' is the right way."
My wife and fellow wordsmith, The Screaming Lady, ponders the debate over a cup of New Year's Day coffee.
"Technically it should be 'two-thousand ten' because that's how you'd pronounce it if you counted upwards from year one. I think we're just lazy."
I resolve to keep it simple and give my lips a rest whenever I can.
3 comments:
My guess is it will be "twenty-ten", and as we get further into the teens it will morph to "Oh-ten", "Oh-eleven", etc. Easier to say.
- Siliconcowboy
I don't care what it's called, just as long as it wasn;t as crappy as 2009.
Amen to that, Lou. Here's to a prosperous New Year, all.
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