How to Say the Years: The Twenty-ohs

This month we're doing some basic historical vocabulary, as republican therapy.

I remember Thanksgiving Friday 1999, which I spent photocopying old documents in the silent offices of the Black Hills National Forest. At lunch I read a news article about how Americans didn't know how to say the upcoming decade. I don't know how to spell this, but "ee yi," I thought, shaking my head in sad amazement. Very, very dispiriting.

To paraphrase Miss Daisy: Stop saying that; you're making me mad. If you know your years then you can say your decades.

Nineteen sixty-one
Nineteen sixty-two
Nineteen-sixties

Nineteen oh-one
Nineteen oh-two
Nineteen-ohs

Twenty oh-one
Twenty oh-two
Twenty-ohs

Twenty thirteen
Twenty fourteen
Twenty-teens

Good grief.

I associate this with the dot-com-bubble, the Clinton impeachment, Woodstock '99, Y2K, and other late-Nineties inanities. Not a smart moment. Let's crawl out of it.

And fey lefty wags calling it the naughts aren't helping. Driving Miss Daisy, Warner Bros. Pictures, 1989. Robert Wellman Campbell, "How to Say the Years: The Twenty-ohs," RSS Longa, 19 March 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.