Why do you? Call it the twenty tens. Cant call it the 20's because that would get confused with the 1920s. Next decade will have the same issue so call that the 2020s. Problem solved.
Sure we can. Nobody talks about the 1920s anymore. We didn't have any trouble with the 90s. The new decade can just be the Teens. I never heard any oldtimers talk about the 1910s. Probably because it was dominated by the war and everybody wanted to forget it.
I would have called it the "Oh's" as in 0. (Not zero.) But now with Obama I would call it the "Oh-no's!"
Until now there was no really reason to use it except THIS decade. From now on we do need to refer to it some other way... I went with augths...
What's wrong with "the Teens"? Once we get to 2013 they will all contain that morpheme. So did the Washington Post and that's a fairly influential newspaper. I suspect the others will follow suit, especially since journalists love short words.
I know, but it doesn't sound right. There ought to be two syllables.. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
My apologies, I have absolutely no idea what 'aughts' is Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Edit: Alright, it's in the OP Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Just finished reading Ben Goldacre's Bad Science (which I wish I'd bought when Nancy Malik started her pro-homoeopathy thread!), and he uses the word "naughties" (without expansion/ explanation) to mean 2000-2009.
I suppose that means it's an Americanism, which will therefore not be popular in the rest of the anglophone world. But seven days into the decade I'd say it's well on its way to being established over here. It's cute and apparently, unlike "aughts," all anglophones understand it. It's just a little bit too cute. Forty years from now no one is going to want to be writing sentences like, "The naughties were marked by the financial collapse that culminated in the recent annexation of the former United States by the Hegemonia Latinomericana, and by a disproportionate and quixotic response to statistically insignificant and often bungled acts of terrorism which triggered the recent nuclear war between the now radioactive Middle Eastern nations."
"Zed" has the same problem in America that "aught" has everywhere else. Nobody has any idea what the word means. And we can't call it "the roaring zees" because "catching some zees" is slang for "sleeping," as in cartoon balloons for snoring.