| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | How is the year "2010" supposed to be pronounced in English, please? Thread poster: Astrid Elke Witte
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| we all say twenty ten over here | Jan 8, 2010 |
Twenty ten is fine it is the usual version here in England. But I have heard the other version as well......
| | | | | | Paul Dixon 
Brazil
Local time: 22:40
Portuguese to English
+ ...
In this computer age, I feel "2K10" (K = 1000, standing for "kilo" as in kilogramme) would be an interesting option. Pronounced as written, "two-kay-ten".
As for me, I normally use "two thousand and ten".
[Edited at 2010-01-09 13:40 GMT]
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 02:40
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| Democracy in action | Jan 20, 2010 |
As has been said, that's one of the things I really appreciate about English. It's OUR language and we'll decide what goes in the dictionaries and grammar books, not the other way around.
As a language trainer, I took the trouble to research this quite a while ago so I could look good when the inevitable questions were asked - no-one could tell me for sure, of course, but it's really determined by the fact that English speakers are, in general, very lazy.
2000 had to be... See more As has been said, that's one of the things I really appreciate about English. It's OUR language and we'll decide what goes in the dictionaries and grammar books, not the other way around.
As a language trainer, I took the trouble to research this quite a while ago so I could look good when the inevitable questions were asked - no-one could tell me for sure, of course, but it's really determined by the fact that English speakers are, in general, very lazy.
2000 had to be "two thousand" - anything else would have been horrible. For 2001 to 2009, most people seemed to find the "twenty oh" ugly, so the "thousand" was retained. As expected, there's a real split now in 2010 - it would even split my household if we cared to row about it as my husband is a "thousand" man and I prefer "twenty"!
For 2011, I believe there will be overall (but not unanimous) support for "twenty eleven". Sooner or later, we need to get back to the "rule", if only to make life simpler for us trainers!
Consider "two thousand (and) seventeen" - 7 syllables for Br Eng speakers, 6 for Americans. OK, "twenty seventeen" isn't that much shorter, but every syllable counts. Then, one day, we'll get to 2777 - that's 12/13 syllables for the "thousand" version, compared to 9. I guarantee every English speaker will then be saying "twenty-seven seventy-seven" - if we're still around by then, and not using some sort of thought transfer rather than good old English. ▲ Collapse
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Julie Barber
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:40
French to English
| Either I suppose but | Jan 20, 2010 |
[quote]sivara wrote:
we all say twenty ten over here
I also work in an office in central London and I've *never* heard anybody say Twenty Ten! (it's a big office there's not 2 or us or something lol)
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Paul Dixon wrote:
In this computer age, I feel "2K10" (K = 1000, standing for "kilo" as in kilogramme) would be an interesting option. Pronounced as written, "two-kay-ten".
Or why not move further away from common style and revive the Roman style MMX, pronounced em-em-ex? Could be hard thing though when we reach e.g. 2027 - MMXXVII.
Seriously spoken, twenty-ten sounds fine to me. It's in analogy with e.g. nineteen-ninety-five for 1995 (I never said nineteen-hundred-ninety-five).
[Edited at 2010-01-21 09:49 GMT]
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