1909

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:30 PM -0500 1/15/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>My NYC grandparents never used the forms "nineteen and..." or
>"nineteen-ought...."  The only form I recall hearing from them (or from
>anyone else outside of the movies) was "nineteen-oh...."
>
>JL

But always "Nineteen oh six" and not "Nineteen six" for dates in the
first decade of the century?  (Granted, you might not remember those
earlier dates clearly, Jon.)

LH
>
>
>On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 12:58 PM, Benjamin Zimmer <
>bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>>  Subject:      Re: 1909
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
>>  wrote:
>>  >
>>  > in my Choosing a Variant course this quarter, we've spent some time on
>>  > the currently hot topic, year names (and number names).  one of the
>>  > students has asked me how people in 1906 referred to that year.  it's
>>  > likely that there were several possibilities, of course.
>>  >
>>  > anyone have any information on the question?
>>
>>  At the beginning of the last decade I poked around a bit for evidence,
>>  from class cheers and the like. From what I could tell anecdotally,
>>  the most common formulation was "nineteen six." This is sometimes
>>  claimed as a Briticism, but there are plenty of examples in the U.S.
>>  as well.
>>
>>  See this alt.usage.english post for cites:
>>  http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/e8a4080f14289670
>>
>>
>>  --Ben Zimmer
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
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