Seems to me that the answer is “both,” because both fit standard well-established patterns of English speech. On top of that, both are clear in context.
The One Right Way theory leads some people to insist that it must be just one, usually by analogy to other usage. Some, for instance, argue that it must be “twenty ten” by analogy to “nineteen sixty-eight.” But why not “two thousand ten,” by analogy to “two thousand”? (Never mind the common “two thousand nine” locution, since some of the “twenty ten”-only advocates claim that too is somehow wrong.)
These sorts of analogies work only to the extent that they help one remember or recognize actual usage patterns. Here, as best I can tell, both “twenty ten” and “two thousand ten” are in common use. You can choose whichever you wish for yourself, but there is no reason to treat one as right and the other as wrong. Prof. Arnold Zwicky has more on this.
Incidentally, this is the way things appear to be in English; common usage in other languages may be different. For instance, the way I learned Russian — and I should acknowledge that I doubtless wasn’t exposed to the wide range of Russian usage, especially current Russian usage — one might say the Russian equivalent of “one thousand nine hundred seventy fifth,” or “seventy fifth” (the word “year” is implied, though it could also be explicitly included) but never “nineteen seventy fifth” or “nineteen hundred seventy fifth.” Saying “Twenty tenth” would thus be incorrect in Russian, simply because it would be a departure from all of the standard usages. (Likewise, saying “ten hundred” would be incorrect in English, though my six-year-old keeps using it, since it’s perfectly logical and analogous to nine hundred, fifteen hundred, and the like. It is a departure from all of the standard adult usages, except when one is trying to emphasize some mathematical fact or analogy, for instance when teaching a child that ten hundred equals a thousand.)
Yet all this further illustrates that the sensible test of correctness is usage, which varies from language to language, and not universal logic. Nor can the test be some hoped-for consistency within the language, as anyone who knows the Russian word for 40 (“sorok,” completely inconsistent with the pattern for other multiples of ten) or the English words for 11 and 12 (completely inconsistent with the pattern for 13 to 19) can tell you. A language consists of what its speakers say, not of what would-be logicians prefer.
Anderson says:
And here I was expecting the launch of an internet campaign for “2010″ to be pronounced “Volokh.”
January 19, 2010, 4:38 pmPJens says:
Not many people referred to the past year as twenty oh nine. I vote for two thousand ten.
January 19, 2010, 4:46 pmptt says:
I wish people would stop acting like this decision hasn’t already been made.
Stardate two-thousand-ten? I don’t think so!
January 19, 2010, 4:47 pmAllan says:
Twenty-ten, of course.
for 1971, we did not, generally, say “19 hundred 71″.
We for 2000 through 2009, it was different. For example, we said “two-thousand one”. The reason is that “twenty-one” would be confusing.
January 19, 2010, 4:52 pmCrazyTrain says:
I didn’t know there was such a controversy. This makes the issue of whether the decade starts in 2010 or 2011 look like a serious, academic debate.
January 19, 2010, 4:56 pmArkady says:
I’ve never heard anyone call Kubrick’s movie “twenty-oh-one”, though I suppose one could. It’s always been “two-thousand-and-one” or even “two-thousand-one”–I suspect because there’s something a bit more dramatic in the “two-thousand..” than in the “twenty…”. Interesting–I was just thinking that if I read the number 2010, I’d probably read it as “two thousand and ten” or “two thousand ten”, but I’ll probably say “twenty-ten” in conversation. Don’t really know why except that “twenty-ten” seems to me to lend itself more to speech.
January 19, 2010, 4:57 pmCrazyTrain says:
Twenty-OH-one, not twenty-one (like nineteen-oh-one for 1901, NOT nineteen-one). And one ludicrous comment pulls me into this silly debate just like that. (And BTW, I agree with the Professor that there is no one objectively correct way to say this.)
January 19, 2010, 4:58 pmEconGrad says:
Now that I’m giving it deliberate thought, I think I’d favor twenty-ten. Perhaps this is too logical but it seems that the variant that is most efficient or least tongue twisting makes sense.
In the 1900′s if one were to say 1999 as One Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety Nine it would have been a 9 syllable mouthful. Nineteen Ninety Nine however is a comparatively brief 5 syllables.
In 2000′s we have Two Thousand Ten (4 syllables) vs. Twenty Ten (3). When the 2100′s roll around the century-year form will still be more efficient — Two Thousand One Hundred vs. Twenty One.
January 19, 2010, 5:09 pmbellisaurius says:
What about 20 hunert ten? I use something similar for addresses…
January 19, 2010, 5:12 pmHouston Lawyer says:
Twenty-ten is shorter and eaiser to say and should therefore win the day. Ten years of listening to “two thousand …” is more than enough.
I always liked the expression from Lord of the Rings where Bilbo, who has turned 111, welcomes everyone to his eleventyfirst birthday party.
January 19, 2010, 5:13 pmD.R.M. says:
To quote the Constitution: “the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven”.
To quote Back to the Future: “Nineteen eighty-five!”
Accordingly, both “two thousand ten” and “twenty ten” are fine. The former would have been considered archaic or highly formal a couple decades ago, but since it was pressed into common use for 2000-2009, it’s no longer nearly as marked.
January 19, 2010, 5:19 pmDJR says:
Maybe it’s the affinity for round numbers or a leftover from the past nine years of “two thousand x”, but I prefer “two thousand ten,” though I see nothing inherently wrong with “twenty ten” other than I don’t like it as much. I think my usage will change some time in the next 10 years since there’s no way I will be saying “two thousand twenty” over “twenty twenty.” Maybe then I will look back and talk about “twenty oh one,” though nobody said it at the time. I wonder whether people around the turn of the century referred to “nineteen oh/aught one” or “nineteen hundred one.” Clearly 1900 was referred to as “nineteen hundred,” right?
January 19, 2010, 5:21 pmys says:
Counting in hundreds beyond one thousand (and not just for naming years) seems to be specific to English. Same about counting baby ages in straight months over the first few years. The former may just be a shortening device (compare “fifteen hundred” with “one thousand five hundred”). By contrast, in Russian “tysyacha pyatsot” is somewhat shorter than “pyatnadtsat soten” (not to mention that the latter would be awkward). This is not to say that this is any justification of correctness.
“Two thousand” on the other hand rolls off the tongue better than “twenty hundred.”
Incidentally, “eleven” and “twelve” pattern is common in Germanic languages and is made on a similar scheme to the “teens” with just the second part different (“left” over ten).
Finally, the Russian “sorok” is linked to a specific hunting term, namely “a tied bunch of 40 sable pelts.” From a technical term it made its way into the general speech. Interestingly, the English “score” (Four score and seven years ago etc.) has apparently come from a similar pelt counting context, but has fallen out of common use. For some reason the norse hunters tied their pelts in bunches of 20. Don’t know if those pelts were bigger than the Russian ones or just less plentiful. It’s apparently related to “shear.” Curiously, the Russian for pelt is “shkura.” The French count in 20s for part of the hundred, which is also derivable from those pelts.
This is almost trivial compared to Hindi, where every number from 1 to 100 is sufficiently different that it has to be memorized separately. There is only a very remote similarity pattern within each ten and between say 45 and 55.
January 19, 2010, 5:26 pmTed says:
I use them both, but I think two-thousand ten is preferable, because nobody would ever say “twenty hundred ten,” thus the abbreviated form “twenty ten” doesn’t make much sense.
January 19, 2010, 5:26 pmptt says:
Come January 1, 2100, I believe we won’t have this problem.
January 19, 2010, 5:32 pmyankee says:
I vote for “twenty ten” on the grounds that it has fewer syllables and is easier to say.
January 19, 2010, 5:36 pmAnderson says:
I vote for “twenty ten” on the grounds that it has fewer syllables and is easier to say.
“Volokh” has 50% fewer syllables.
January 19, 2010, 5:41 pmtamerlane says:
I think Allan got it right. Up till now the expressions twenty-one, twenty-two etc., would have been ambiguous. Twenty-ten, twenty-eleven etc., are not ambiguous, are analogous to how we said earlier dates, e.g., nineteen-twenty, and are easier to say if not also euphonious. Back in 2001 I predicted that people would say two-thousand-one, two-thousand-two, etc., until 2010 when they would switch to twenty-ten, etc. It’s not rhetorical correctness or proper diction; it’s just human nature.
January 19, 2010, 5:47 pmPJens says:
ptt… “Come January 1, 2100, I believe we won’t have this problem.”
We? Are you serious about living that long?
January 19, 2010, 5:49 pmSteve says:
Twenty-ten is more colloquial, but it’s hard to see how either one is wrong.
January 19, 2010, 6:04 pmTed says:
Tamerlane, as CrazyTrain already pointed out, that is not a relevant consideration, because nobody would ever have said “twenty-one” in reference to 2001; they would have said (as some do) “twenty-OH-one,” just as I would say “nineteen-oh-one” if discussing the year 1901.
January 19, 2010, 6:18 pmDennis N says:
You want consistency, speak a language other than English.
I’m surprised that “ought” hasn’t come up as in Nineteen Ought Six, or Twenty Ought Four, although I don’t believe I’ve heard ought used recently, except in the nomenclature of the .30-06 cartridge, the venerable Thirty Ought Six. But that’s probably because they did use the term back in Ought Six.
I think that either Two Thousand Ten or Twenty Ten scans OK, but next year it will be Twenty Eleven.
January 19, 2010, 6:23 pmArmyDad says:
As a kid in Texas I would hear “Nineteen hunnert and fifty-three,” and even “Nineteen and fifty-three.”
How about variations on pronouncing NCAA? En-cee-a-a; En-cee-2-a; and En-cee-double a.
January 19, 2010, 6:56 pmBama 1L says:
I am referring to this year as “oh-ten” and next year as “oh-eleven.”
January 19, 2010, 6:57 pmSenatorX says:
I’ll go with Twenty Ten this year and switch to Two Thousand Eleven next year. Then back to Twenty Twelve, then Twenty Thirteen, and back to Two Thousand Fourteen and so on till Twenty Twenty. When both words start with the same letter it rolls better for me.
On another note I find the word “Twenty” a bit bizzare for some reason.
January 19, 2010, 7:04 pmFantasiaWHT says:
“oh ten”
January 19, 2010, 7:19 pmThe Truth Is Out There HAHA says:
Being a math geek, I like En-cee-A-squared.
January 19, 2010, 7:29 pmRandy says:
Yankee is right. One constant of American speech patterns is that we are constantly shortening words and phrases. Hence, we say ‘later’ for See you later. Bye is short for goodbye, which in turn is short for God be with you. (The first pilgrims said the God be with you, and their children were already shortening it to God be, which turned into goodbye). Then there is howdy, short for how do you do.
My vote is that this will sort itself out soon for twenty-ten. and I wouldn’t be surprised is people started saying “twenten”
January 19, 2010, 7:32 pmCrunchy Frog says:
I’m calling it MMX – has a nice ultimate fighting feel to it.
January 19, 2010, 7:39 pmDavid Schwartz says:
That’s a nonsensical argument. Nobody would ever say “get your self-contained underwater breathing apparatus gear”, but there’s nothing wrong with saying “get your scuba gear”.
There is no law that requires an abbreviation to have any of the same linguistic properties as the thing it abbreviates. It is not uncommon at all for abbreviations to be usable in places where the full form is unusable.
January 19, 2010, 7:43 pmliamascorcaigh says:
One of the most famous events in Irish history is the Battle of Clontarf in which the High King of Ireland, Brian Boru, defeated the Danes and ended Viking power in the land. The battle took place on Good Friday 1014. This was taught in school and is part of people’s common knowledge. We always, without exception, expressed this date in speech as “ten-fourteen”. It never occurred to anyone to use the “one thousand (and) ten” formulation.
BTW, I have heard some Irish people of a generation now in their 80s/90s and older, and with a rural background say “nineteen and fifty-seven” or even “nineteen hundred and fifty-seven”, so I suppose that there’s always more ways to kill a cat than choking it with butter.
January 19, 2010, 7:48 pmKeithK says:
For me the more interesting question is when we’ll get to drop the whole twenty/two thousand thing entirely and just use the last last two digits of the word. Twnety five years from now I’ll be shocked if people are still saying twnety thirty five or two thousand thirty five in common conversation. They’ll just say thirty five with the century implied.
I’d vote for 2013. By then we’re far enough away from the turn of the century where the novelty should have long worn off and you’re at the point where you no longer ever have one syllable years like nine (2009) that just call out for the first part.
January 19, 2010, 7:49 pmCDR D says:
It really doesn’t matter.
I have always said “twenty-oh-whatever” since 2001.
I will continue to use the “twenty -” to refer to the years, just as I did with the “nineteens”.
January 19, 2010, 8:02 pmptt says:
I won’t. Some posters on here probably will, lucky whippersnappers.
January 19, 2010, 8:49 pmRob says:
Hendrik Hertzberg already wrote this column about three weeks ago. He correctly attributes our use of two-thousand-one to Stanley Kubrick. Most of Generation Y hasn’t seen that movie, however, so as the years go by, twenty-ten, etc. will become more common.
January 19, 2010, 8:57 pmRelic says:
Dennis N. interesting side note related to the .30-06: I grew up hearing thirty-odd-six instead of thirty-ought-six.
January 19, 2010, 9:01 pmRich says:
I agree with Eugene and, mostly, EconGrad. It’s difficult for me to imagine too many people saying “two thousand eleven”, but “two thousand seventeen” is so cumbersome, “two thousand” can’t continue that long. (With “twelve” being one syllable, perhaps 2013 will be the year be all go to “twenty”.) In any event, even “two thousand seventeen” won’t be wrong, it’ll just be annoying. You know, like old people used to talk, “Back in nineteen hundred and thirty-nine, your grandmother and I…”
January 19, 2010, 9:18 pmMilhouse says:
I’ve been saying “twenty oh one”, “twenty oh two”, etc. since way back in the 1980s, and was annoyed when the years came and everyone else seemed to be saying “two thousand and X”. I mean, come on, people, what was the year after “nineteen hundred”? “nineteen hundred and one”, or “nineteen oh one”? So I’m relieved that people seem to finally be coming over to my side with “twenty ten”.
January 19, 2010, 9:28 pmChrisIowa says:
ditto
January 19, 2010, 9:34 pmSome dude says:
I graduated in eighty-four.
I graduated in ten.
The second doesn’t work.
January 19, 2010, 9:38 pmkarrde says:
I’ll second the use of “MMX”.
It all became so much easier after MCMXCIX ended, and MM began.
I don’t suppose anyone said it in MDCCCLXXXVIII, though.
January 19, 2010, 11:11 pmTim says:
I always get a kick out of these modern language usage posts.
January 19, 2010, 11:14 pmKev says:
Agreed. I’ve been referring to twenty-eleven for quite a while now (there’s a major highway project in my area that will be completed next year, which is why it’s been a source of conversation). It just rolls off the tongue more gracefully than “two thousand and…” IMHO.
And yes, no matter what, it should be settled by 2020, thanks to its widespread use in pop culture (the TV program, 20/20 vision, etc.).
January 19, 2010, 11:27 pmCurious passerby says:
I like twenty-oh-ten best!
But why don’t we check the records for the year 1010 and see what people did then!
January 19, 2010, 11:41 pmnon-native speaker says:
Would “two thousand and ten” be standard use? Or is there a difference between British and American English?
January 20, 2010, 6:53 amGo Blue says:
I say 1066 as Ten-Sixty-Six, so I guess I should start calling 2010 twenty-ten.
January 20, 2010, 9:21 ambellisaurius says:
I like the ear feel, but two thousand and ten, in english technically implies a decimal point for us, non-nantive. 20.10
January 20, 2010, 10:57 amDavid Chesler says:
I was also thinking about Ten-Sixty-Six (and all that) as a guide. Of course Ten-One isn’t a number, while Twenty-One is.
I didn’t hear “aught” until the late in the end-of-decade articles last month. I agree with the syllable counters. And those who said the Kubrick movie was always “Two Thousand (and) One”. What did we call the sequel? Did we see it? :-)
My checks used to have a date line ____, 19__. I thought, starting in 1990 they should have printed it ____, 199_. I did on a few forms I generated, but mostly they went to ____, ____. I guess they, and all the automated operator systems, are being sure they’re not caught in the Y2.1K problem. (For the last few years I’ve been dating my checks “MIM”, “MM”, and then “1″, “2″ etc — I figure if I can leave off the first two digits I should leave off the third as well.)
I think I’m wobbling on the base question. It depends on the context. I’m sure I’d say “In the two thousand nine – two thousand ten time-frame”.
KeithK raises and answers a good question. I think it will be retrospective. (As in “Back in Aught Nine, when blogs were still in ASCII…”) For that matter, what do we do with old stories in the early 1900s? Was the Armistice signed on November eleventh eighteen or November eleventh nineteen-eighteen? I’m pretty sure I’ve only heard the latter.
By mid-century, it’s well established, as in the Forty-Niners.
And Zagar and Evans have answered the question for the year twenty-five twenty-five (if man is still alive.)
January 20, 2010, 11:11 amMark Horning says:
I have to agree with liamascorcaigh,
Quick what year was the Battle of Hastings?
January 20, 2010, 4:12 pmDid you say one-thousand sixty six or ten-sixty-six in your head?
For me it was certainly the latter.
Harald says:
We have the same discussion in Norway. I say:
January 20, 2010, 4:41 pm1810 – 1910 – 2010 – 2110
Simple is best!
Allan says:
Naming conventions are fine for the present time. We need to think a little more globally and provide some guidance to those that follow. What is the proper way to say year 2,242,342, for example?
January 20, 2010, 5:36 pmDuffy Pratt says:
How about Five Hundred Score and Ten?
And for those who insist on some sort of logic, we should get rid of 10 through 39, and change spelling for the next twenty after that.
After nine, we get Onety, Onety-one, Onety-two, etc., until Twoty, Twoty-one, etc., then Threety, Fourty, Fivety, Sixty and so on.
January 21, 2010, 2:51 amDavid Chesler says:
Some of us who insist on logic say it’s currently 0xEC4CD6914
January 21, 2010, 7:12 amFen says:
RUSH already decided this question with their album, 2112.
January 21, 2010, 2:44 pm