Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Something Mundane To Enliven Your Wednesday

What decade are we currently living in? If I talk to you about the 40's or the 80's, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I suppose there are some people who might think I was referring to the 1840's, but those people are idiots, so we're just going to ignore them. Also, I think a case can be made that when you refer to one of these decades, you shouldn't be held prisoner to mere numbers. As far as I'm concerned, the 50's ended around 1962 and the 60's managed to hang on clear into 1974.

At any rate, sometime in the not too distant future, we're going to have occasion to refer back to this decade. The Aughties has a distinctly archaic sound to it. The Zeros? The Twenty Hundreds? The Two-Thousands? These all sound really stupid. And we better come up with an answer or we're going to be in deep doo-doo in just a few years.

You'll be sitting at the dinner table saying things like, "Timmy, stop whining about how heavy your templar interface is. Why I remember back in the Aughties, we had to lug around 5 lb. laptops everywhere. And you had to find a Starbucks to get a WiFi signal." And little Timmy will say something snotty like, "What's the big deal about that? There's two Starbucks on every block...it's a law!"

So, anyway, does anybody know a decent name for this decade?

**Brought to you by guest-blogger Andy Rooney**

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

The "ohs," as in, "Back in the 'ohs, I used to show them my 'Oh face.' You know, 'Oh, oh.'"

:)

mattw said...

How about the doulbleohs, but it would have to be said fast with no pause inbetween. Or maybe the MilleniOhs

kimby said...

Someone around the turn of the century was talking about this very topic. I liked their idea..."the naughts"..
Thought it was catchy.

Todd Wheeler said...

Written descriptions have devolved into the unfortunate 2k1, 2k3, etc. The 2k's?

Perhaps we should throw off the shackles of base-10 thinking, like you describe those earlier 'decades', Nathan, as rolling over the barriers of the 10-year mark.

Just need a kickin' name to catch on, like the 'age of exuberance' or the 'jazz age'.

The internet years? Or maybe the Google. If we use that enough as a generic term we can de-trademark it.

Random Michelle K said...

I think at the turn of the past century they were the oughts/aughts.

And if you consider, nothing much interesting must have happened, because we never hear about 'em.

Jeff Hentosz said...

I like "aughts" (not "aughties," fool). "Why back in aught-four we had real music -- not like the caterwauling you punks listen to today. Back then we had real artists. Like Ruben Studdard."

Here's what: let's call it "The Nathan Gendzier Decade," and leave it at that.

I have dibs on the next one.

Random Michelle K said...

The only time I heard "aughties" mentioned was, I believe, "naughty aughties"

which is amusing

Nathan said...

I get a decade! I get a decade!

Now, we just have to tell everybody.

Anonymous said...

I'm all for a less precise reference like "back in the early 21st century". But I'm good with the Nathan Gendzier decade too. ;)

Anne C. said...

I think th previous Aughts (of the 20th century) get referred to as "at the turn of the century." Maybe this one we call "at the turn of the millenium."
Or we can name it after Nathan.

Tom said...

Since the nuk-e-ler king has reigned since 2K, I think we should refer to this decade as the "nutty aughts." We don't seem to have been particularly naughty.

Tom said...

Or we could just take our cue from Heinlein and call them "the Crazy Years!"

Unknown said...

Holy cow I thought about this same problem! I like ohs. Let's go with ohs.

But what about the years 2010-2019?

Nathan said...

Those will be the 'tens' or 'teens'.

So let it be written; So let it be done.