2010

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:10 AM -0500 12/18/08, Grant Barrett wrote:
>On Dec 18, 2008, at 10:49, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
>>"Twenty ten" may win out over "Two thousand [and] ten" simply because
>>it is one [or two] syllables shorter.
>
>I've observed that when people are not thinking about what they're
>calling the year, "twenty nine" and "twenty eight" and so forth are
>more common than "twenty oh nine" or "twenty oh eight." Even though
>that's counterintuitive. I believe it works because the year "2029" is
>sufficiently far off for there to be little confusion.
>
As I said, I'm a "two thousand (and) nine" speaker, but I suspect
that for the other group there may be a different juncture for "29"
("twenty-nine") and "2009" pronounced as "twenty - nine".  Maybe not
obligatorily, but typically, the latter has a longer pause.

LH

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