AstroBoy Online Forums

...do you say the year is "two-thousand thirteen" or "twenty thirteen"? The same goes for 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2014 through 2099. There is no right or wrong answer.

I think mostly "twenty-thirteen". But I may alternate from time to time; I dunno. I know it was "twenty-twelve" most of the time, and "twenty-eleven", too, I think, but I may have said "two thousand-eleven" every now and then. I'm pretty sure I mostly said "two thousand-ten", but I might've said differently, too.

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Why is this important?

"Little Brown Fox" wrote:Why is this important?

Just for curiosity's sake. It's interesting to me that there is no definitive way to say the year.

So, it's not important in any way. I just wanted to see which one people prefer to say, or if they alternate between saying both.

So just curious, huh? Curiosity killed the cat, you know! (*points* this is actually a reference to something can you guess what it is?)

I've asked myself the same question not too long ago about German, which I'm learning. I settled on "nineteen something" and "two thousand thirteen" because I just find it more simple to say or read this way. In English, I have a strong preference for "two thousand thirteen" because that's how I would say it in my native language, but I find "one thousand nine hundred..." way too long and I'm too used to "nineteen something" to do it for previous centuries.