What Year is It?

What year is it? That's easy. 2009. Duh. Conversation, over...right? Hold the bell.

Say "2009" out loud. Two-thousand and nine. Nobody calls it twenty-oh-nine. Yet at the same time, when referring to hundred years ago, people generally say "nineteen-oh-nine." We have a problem here. In ten years are we still going to be saying "two-thousand and nineteen"? Like hell we are. We need to say "twenty nineteen." I can't be wasting two syllables every time I say the year, I've got things to do, places to be.

Who started this failure trend anyway? My first accusation goes out to Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. Their film/book "2001: A Space Odyssey" was the first widespread cultural recognition of new year terminology, as people called the premiere of the 21st century "two-thousand" and not "twenty-hundred."

However, there is the possibility that this has something to do with living the moment. Perhaps the numerical connotations of the year "1909" are a subtle reflection of its past-tense status and total completion. Whereas, 2009 is spoken as if one is counting out loud--thereby reflecting that the time period is not over and will continue to grow higher. So perhaps people 100 years ago referred to their present year as "nineteen hundred and nine."

However, that theory is weak as people ten years ago did not say "nineteen hundred and ninety-nine." We said "nineteen ninety-nine." At some point there had to be a jump. Similarly, I pray people don't have to say "two thousand and ninety-nine" in ninety years. Therefore, we need terminology jump at some New Year's Eve.

Go figure a New Year's Eve is around the corner. Like changing to the metric system, it may be weird and confusing at first, but trust me, it makes more sense and after the initial "weirdness" wears off, we will be better off. Now lets all make a collective effort to right ourselves for the sake of future simplicity and ring in the year "twenty-ten"!