All the Decade Name Suggestions Debunked, Except Unies
Seriously, two-thousands, aughts, naughts, ohs and zeros is that the best we have?
All right, enough of the useless speculation of what we should call the decade, the years between 2000 and 2009. It seems every article or web page I find on this topic has one thing in common, they all just present a bunch of ridiculous suggestions. Not one of these articles and web pages present the best idea or the most supported term.
Ten year’s, I’ve been researching this topic and there is not one media outlet that really has jumped on board to resolve this question and capture the hearts and minds of America and the world together. Are they afraid? With all the grounding breaking social media sites, Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace, you would think one individual or small task force could push their term to the mainstream. Unfortunately, media has not jumped on board and the social media sites have not helped further a grass roots campaign. Shocking!
These terms and suggestions previously mentioned, simply don’t work. They don’t work because they don’t fit the formula. Formula, you might be asking yourself, “What’s that?” A word or term used for the nameless decade should be able to be used in weather, ages and the decade.
Weather
A weatherman might report, “temperatures will be getting cold tonight in the low to mid-twenties.” or he might state, “Temperature will be getting hot tonight in the mid- to upper-nineties.” He uses the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties but nothing for the numbers between 0 and 9. For this they usually use “single digits.” So we would have to find a word which would replace single digits. Let’s try each suggested word in the weather formula.
All my life I have experience in thinking about my own age. Currently, I’m in my thirties and I remember in my twenties when I began this journey to name the decade. Again, the term to group the numbers between 0 and 9 can be used for ages too. What is the word that people remember for the age between 0 and 9? Nobody really remembers this age nor do they speculate on the coming years or groups of years like we do when we are older, say your sixties and seventies. Let’s try to use the suggestions for ages.
All right, enough of the useless speculation of what we should call the decade, the years between 2000 and 2009. It seems every article or web page I find on this topic has one thing in common, they all just present a bunch of ridiculous suggestions. Not one of these articles and web pages present the best idea or the most supported term.
Ten year’s, I’ve been researching this topic and there is not one media outlet that really has jumped on board to resolve this question and capture the hearts and minds of America and the world together. Are they afraid? With all the grounding breaking social media sites, Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace, you would think one individual or small task force could push their term to the mainstream. Unfortunately, media has not jumped on board and the social media sites have not helped further a grass roots campaign. Shocking!
These terms and suggestions previously mentioned, simply don’t work. They don’t work because they don’t fit the formula. Formula, you might be asking yourself, “What’s that?” A word or term used for the nameless decade should be able to be used in weather, ages and the decade.
Weather
A weatherman might report, “temperatures will be getting cold tonight in the low to mid-twenties.” or he might state, “Temperature will be getting hot tonight in the mid- to upper-nineties.” He uses the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties but nothing for the numbers between 0 and 9. For this they usually use “single digits.” So we would have to find a word which would replace single digits. Let’s try each suggested word in the weather formula.
- Two-thousands – “Temperatures are getting cold tonight in the low to mid- two-thousands.”
- Aughts – “Temperatures are getting cold tonight in the low to mid-aughts.”
- Naughts – “Temperatures are getting cold tonight in the low to mid-naughts.”
- Ohs – “Temperatures are getting cold tonight in the low to mid-ohs.”
- Zeros – “Temperatures are getting cold tonight in the low to mid-zeros.”
- Unies – “Temperatures are getting cold tonight in the low to mid-unies.”
- Two-thousands – The term two-thousands works for the decade now but doesn’t work for weather. The focus of this term is on 2,000 and not the numbers between 0 and 9. The two-thousands will actually be the years between 2000 and 2999. So the focus on this word is completely incorrect.
- Aughts, Naughts, Ohs, Zeros - The term aughts, naughts, and ohs all are synonyms of zero. Zero is best describe as a null set or empty set, as in having no value. So making the numbers between 0 and 9 the aughts, naughts, ohs and zeros doesn’t make sense. It is empty or having no members. You can not make an empty set plural because it has no value. Oh and Ohs has the same value, zero. Zero and Zeros has both add up to Zero.
- Unies – The term unies or uni- is a Latin word that means one. The numbers between 0 and 9 are all one-digit in length. The word uni- means one, like unicycle and unicorn. It is also a prefix to mean come together to make one, a university is a bunch of colleges. If you add the number of 10 unicorns, you will get the number 10. There is a value to uni- unlike zeros, ohs, naughts, and aughts.
All my life I have experience in thinking about my own age. Currently, I’m in my thirties and I remember in my twenties when I began this journey to name the decade. Again, the term to group the numbers between 0 and 9 can be used for ages too. What is the word that people remember for the age between 0 and 9? Nobody really remembers this age nor do they speculate on the coming years or groups of years like we do when we are older, say your sixties and seventies. Let’s try to use the suggestions for ages.
- Two-thousands – “I remember very little about my two-thousands.”
- Aughts – “I remember very little about my aughts.”
- Naughts – “I remember very little about my naughts.”
- Ohs – “I remember very little about my ohs.”
- Zeros – “I remember very little about my zeros.”
- Unies – “I remember very little about my unies.”
- Two-thousands – The term two-thousands works for the decade now but doesn’t work for ages because it is too big of a number. The focus of this term is on 2,000 and not the numbers between 0 and 9. The two-thousands will actually be the years between 2000 and 2999. So the focus on this word is completely incorrect. A person will never live to be 2,000 years old.
- Aughts, Naughts, Ohs, Zeros - The term aughts, naughts, and ohs all are synonyms of zero and a person cannot be zero years old. Again, these terms have no value, they are an empty set.
- Unies – The term unies or uni- is a Latin word that means one. The numbers between 0 and 9 are all one-digit in length. This could work for ages.
Labels: opinions
posted by Ryan at
7:37 AM
2 Comments:
Wow. Must be nice to have nothing to do but this.
A valiant effort, my friend, but as a TIME magazine poll suggested at the very start of this decade (link below), the organic North American choice for this decade's name is "aughts". If you don't believe me, do a Google News search. "Aughts" is by far the most prevalent name being used in U.S. media sources. The UK and Australia have gone the "noughties/naughties" route, but we both know, that's too racy/cutesy for the descendents of the Mayflower.
Prediction: in December of this year (2009) and the following month, January 2010, we will finally see the long-delayed media frenzy regarding the question of what to call the first decade of the twenty-first century. And "aughts" will, with no great enthusiasm, be declared the winner.
Respectfully
The Competition :)
P.S. One of the big problems with "unies" is that it's the French word for "united". That will hurt the name in the search engine element of this esoteric drama's end-game. Nevertheless, you went the distance and you gave it very serious, sustained and commendable effort. Sincere kudos.
P.P.S. The Time Magazine link mentioned above is: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,995818,00.html . Note that the writer of this brief article correctly dismisses the late-stage surge of votes for "MM's" as a deliberate and organized skew.
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