Dating

Each year, about this time, I start writing the correct year as part of the date. That's right, it takes me almost a month to burn the year into my brain. That's an average. Some years it took longer.

This year has been different. I have yet to make a mistake and use "09" or "2009" when writing a date. This may be because I have had so few occasions where I have had to write out a date. Being retired and dumping all the bills and correspondence onto Faye means I rarely pick up a pen except to jot down a note to myself. And notes to myself (I like to call them intra-personal memos) rarely have any dates on them.

While I am talking about the year, I hear this one being referenced in an unusual way. The guy said it was "two K ten". I usually, if I verbalize it at all, say it as "twenty ten". I have also heard people say "two ten" which, to me, makes no sense at all. 2009 was no problem, everyone seemed to reference it as "oh nine". In fact, the only one I never heard a short form for was 2000. That one was always "two thousand" unless they were talking about the non-existent disaster called the "two K bug".

Following that train of thought, we have a couple of ways of referencing a decade. One uses the tens digit; 50's, 60's, 70's, etc. The other uses something that is associated with the period; the Roaring Twenties or Gay Nineties or the Reagan Years (only 8 years but who's counting?). No one has come up with a good, catchy, name for the 2000 to 2009 decade. Maybe we'd just like to forget it. I think someone suggested the Noughties. But I don't think that will catch on, the sound-alike connotation doesn't really work.

So, have you caught up to the year in dating checks yet?