I grew up in the 90s and I remember being able to truncate the year down to just 2 numbers when talking about years within the current millennium. It seems like we’re still saying twenty before every year and I’m just wondering when that will change.

  • kamen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    14 hours ago

    Depends on the language honestly. In my native language (that’s not English) it sounds somewhat clumsy with the zero in front, but it’s still sometimes used. Depending on the context it might be a simple number (zero two) or it might be an ordinal (zero second). From 2010 and on it’s been easier because you just say the equivalent of “tenth”, “eleventh” and so on.

    In writing it also depends on the context - if it’s something ambiguous (that could be 1925 or 2025), then sure, write the full year, otherwise two digits are fine.

  • ooterness@lemmy.worldEnglish
    691·
    24 hours ago

    ISO8601 / RFC3339 gang represent. You’ll have to take four digit years from my cold, dead hands.

  • FaceDeer@fedia.io
    29·
    23 hours ago

    It’s important to say the “20” prefix so that viewers will know that we’re set in “the future.”

    • mcqtom@lemmy.world
      12·
      24 hours ago

      Nah, I couldn’t even bring myself to say “twenty” something until 2013. Before that it was all like “two thousand and five”.

      Still saying the twenty part. Not sure when that can fall away. Since I was around for the nineteens, maybe I’ll never stop.

    • Swordgeek@lemmy.ca
      5·
      22 hours ago

      Most English-spealking people outside the US said ‘aught’ instead of ‘oh’, but definitely about 2005 the ‘two thousand and’ syntax evaporated.

      • bryndos@fedia.io
        2·
        16 hours ago

        In UK I’ve mostly have heard ‘naughties’ for the decade sine about 1999. But I rarely heard “naughty X” as a year name unless someone was being even more deliberately daft. I’d say “oh” would be most common here after “two thousand and X” too in my experience.

        I always thought that “'aught” was an American contraction of ‘naught’.

        “aught” in old timey-English can mean “other” or “else” or even “anything”. In my local dialect we still say “owt” meaning “anything” as an opposite of “nowt” nothing".

      • porcoesphino@mander.xyz
        2·
        21 hours ago

        I think Australian’s usually say “oh”. Signed an Aussie that’s spent enough time abroad to confuse himself on what they actually say

    • db2@lemmy.world
      5·
      22 hours ago

      Time to ruin your day. They’ve been calling that time period the “aughties”.

  • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org
    8·
    20 hours ago

    IMHO when the two digit year equals the median age of all living people.

    In other words, when the people who are born in 2xxx become the majority. That’s probably somewhere in the thirties.

    (Not counting the ones who use a different year number, for example Chinese, Jews…)

  • nostrauxendar@lemmy.world
    15·
    1 day ago

    You can totally start now. Although, and maybe this is just a me thing, I’d feel like a massive bellend if I referred to something that happened in, for instance, 2021 as “in '21”.

    I think I’d feel okay with “'01”, through to “'09”, then the teens feel weird again but only because it just feels weird to refer to a year as small as like… “'13”… although I don’t have that same problem with the naughties, maybe that’s because of the added “oh” making it seem like more than just a number? And then the twenties feel like big enough numbers to abbreviate but, yeah, again, I’d feel like a tool.

  • MyMindIsLikeAnOcean@piefed.worldEnglish
    12·
    23 hours ago

    In the 30s you can start talking about the 20s. It will be annoying at first because people will try to be funny and/or get intentionally get confused that you’re talking about the 1920s.

    I’d imagine talking the way you’re being nostalgic about will be in full swing by the 2040s.