[Ads-l] 192 = 1902

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Thu Apr 20 16:22:34 UTC 2017


Back in 2012, I wrote about "two thousand twelve" vs. "twenty twelve" for
the Boston Globe:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/01/01/twenty-what-two-thousand-who/ywqI89MnbfjgBY0kKc3zpN/story.html

I said that "two thousand X" had held for the first decade of the century
(in part influenced by how the name of the movie "2001" was pronounced),
but that "twenty X" would take over in the Teens. ("Twenty-" was voted Most
Likely to Succeed in the 2009 ADS WOTY voting.)


On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 9:00 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <
adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:

> The parallel constructions would be:
>
> 1901 -- Nineteen one
> 1901 -- Nineteen oh one
> 1901 -- Nineteen hundred one
> 1901 -- Nineteen hundred and one
>
> 2001 -- Twenty one    (I do not think this is very common)
> 2001 -- Twenty oh one
> 2001 -- Two thousand one
> 2001 -- Two thousand and one
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 8:54 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
> > “Two thousand and one” for me, if we’re doing a survey.
> >
> > LH
> >
> >> On Apr 19, 2017, at 8:36 PM, Jim Parish <jparish at SIUE.EDU> wrote:
> >>
> >> I've always pronounced the title "two thousand one".
> >>
> >> Jim Parish
> >>
> >> On 4/19/2017 7:31 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >>> And wasn't the movie title "2001" usu. pronounced as "two thousand and
> one"?
> >>>
> >>> JL
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 8:30 PM, Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Sounds perfectly normal to me.  I'd say either "Two thousand two" or
> "two
> >>>> thousand and two."
> >>>>
> >>>> "Twenty oh two" is possible, but I wouldn't say it.
> >>>>
> >>>> JL
> >>>>
> >>>> On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 5:06 PM, Barretts Mail <
> mail.barretts at gmail.com>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Thank you! I had no idea how to search for that in the archives! BB
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> On 19 Apr 2017, at 11:05, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> This has come here in the past, as in this 2010 thread:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2010-Januar
> >>>>> y/095487.html
> >>>>>> As I said there, the "nineteen two" formulation seems to have been
> quite
> >>>>>> common -- perhaps the most common way to say the name of the year
> at the
> >>>>>> time. I found evidence for it from class cheers and other sources
> when I
> >>>>>> looked into the matter in aught one:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/
> e8a4080f14289670
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Based on our previous discussion, I think either "nineteen two" or
> >>>>>> "nineteen and two" would've been more common at the time than
> "nineteen
> >>>>> oh
> >>>>>> two" (or "nineteen aught two" for that matter).
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 4:44 PM, Barretts Mail <
> mail.barretts at gmail.com
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> As recreated in the film “Jackie,” Jackie Kennedy pronounced the
> year
> >>>>>>> “1902” as “19 2” in her 1961 tour of the White House. The original
> is
> >>>>> at
> >>>>>>> about 6:30 into the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?
> >>>>> v=CbFt4h3Dkkw <
> >>>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbFt4h3Dkkw>.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I pronounce this as “19 OH 2” and her pronunciation seems odd to
> me,
> >>>>>>> though perhaps it’s a regional or chronolectal thing.
> >>>>>>>
>

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