Wadda ya gonna call the new year?

Just to let you know about how my mind works (maybe the word "operates" is a better term), I have been pondering for the past few months about what to call the new year. Is it going to be "two-thousand-ten"? "Twenty-ten"? Or some new combination I haven't thought of?

I know, I know, get a life, you say. But this is interesting...well, at least to me...and at least at the moment.

For most of my life - which now exceeds a half-century - we were satisfied with saying something like "nineteen hundred and ninety-nine" or more simply, "nineteen-ninety-nine." There was virtually no one saying "one-thousand, nine-hundred and ninety nine," right? So, then along comes the new millennium and everything changes. Did anyone refer to the new year as "twenty-zero-zero"? or "twenty-ought-zero"? or "twenty-hundred?" No, from the very beginning it was simply "two thousand" and occasionally, we seemed to feel the need to qualify it by saying, "the year two-thousand."

Then for ten years we simply used the same convention, "two thousand-one," two thousand-two," right up to "two thousand nine." So, logic would dictate that the New Year starting tomorrow will be called "two thousand ten," right?

Wrong.

Everyone around here is referring to it as "twenty-ten," including me. And, God-willing, in ten years I will be calling the New Year "twenty-twenty" and those people on ABC News will be happy (even though their "news-entertainment" program is probably supposed to be referencing the notion of 20-20 vision. Indeed their program is actually listed as "20/20.")

Part of me wants to call this new year "two-thousand-ten," but perhaps because this almost past-decade sucked for so many folks, most people seem almost happy to change the vernacular. But maybe it's just because I am basically lazy and "twenty-ten" is easier to say.

So, what will it be, folks? Wadda ya gonna call the new year?

As my father was fond of saying to these rhetorical questions, "we'll see."

Happy New Year! Whatever you call it.

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image licensed through Creative Commons by photonbomb