Year names

[Wilson Gray]

My impression is that Bush's pronunciation is extremely common, if not
standard, in the U.S.. I prefer "twenty-oh-seven," but I may be the
only American who does. I've also heard "two-oh-seven." What's up with
"1066"? Is the point that some people say
"one-thousand-(and-)sixty-six"? FWIW, I've never heard that and that
the ppronunciation could be something other than "ten-sixty-six" has
never occurred to me.

-Wilson

On 5/2/07, Jim Parish <jparish at siue.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jim Parish <jparish at SIUE.EDU>
> Subject:      Year names
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Recently, I've been participating in a LiveJournal discussion on the
> pronunciation of year names. The original poster, who is Swedish, was
> struck by President Bush's use of the phrase "two thousand seven" to
> refer to the current year; the corresponding name in Swedish would
> translate as "twenty-hundred and seven".
>
> I replied that this was standard usage, with "twenty-oh-seven" as a rarer
> possibility (and "twenty-hundred and seven" an impossibility), but
> pointed out that in later decades "two thousand seventeen" and
> "twenty-seventeen" would be possibilities, with the former being
> somewhat more formal.
>
> A British reader then commented that, to his(?) ear, "two thousand
> seven" sounded odd; he preferred "two thousand and seven", with
> "twenty-oh-seven" a rarer option. Likewise, he preferred an "and" in,
> e.g., "two thousand and seventeen". He also pointed out that, though
> he had never heard anyone use "twenty hundred seven", "nineteen
> hundred and seven" was perfectly standard. As another data point, he
> said, "1066" is always pronounced "ten-sixty-six" in English history
> classes.
>
> So, I'm curious. What sorts of variation - in register, dialect, or what
> have you - are there in the verbalization of year names? Is there, e.g.,
> such a clear division between AmE and BrE as the above suggests?
>
> Jim Parish
>
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                                              -Sam'l Clemens
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                                           Rumanian proverb

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