Monday 26 November 2012

Say Twenty

It's simple, really. Say "twenty- " and not  "two thousand." Say the year as "twenty-twelve" and not "two thousand twelve."
Simple, yet disused. I understand that, at the most recent turn of the century, it was awkward (perhaps not even conceived) to say "twenty hundred," yet we had for decades been saying "nineteen hundred."
Even more, we had been saying "nineteen-seventy -eighty -ninety" until....2000.
It may be awkward to say "twenty-oh-one" but it's good.

Now, in other languages, the opposite consistency is at work. Spanish, which I speak sometimes, says "two thousand" but they also said "one thousand nine hundred."
So let's get with it, in English, and be consistent. Say twenty.