Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Oh-Eight, Oh-Nine, Oh-No....


I sensed this two year ago. My particular industry works in three-year terms sometimes, so we started dealing with 2010 during 2007. People had been saying, "Oh-Six to Oh-Nine" for that three-year term, and then I heard them start saying, "Oh-Seven to Oh-Ten.". Beh.

I'll agree with you that there is a zero before the ten in 2010. However, you didn't say "Double-Oh Seven" for 2007, did you? Huh? No.

If you don't want to say "Oh-nine to ten", just say "Oh-nine to One-Oh." Personally, I prefer "Ought-Nine to Twenty-ten." I think that it has a nice ring to it.

So, you car dealerships out there, you are NOT selling "Oh-Ten Elantras" or "Oh-Ten F-150s". Just say "Two-thousand and ten."

3 comments:

bee listy said...

I was a big user of "ought". i will miss it.

Unknown said...

Mathematically speaking, "two thousand and ten" is inaccurate, it would be "two thousand, ten"

Jon said...

Good thing it's not math; it's grammar. The common rules of English numerals permit many variations..."Oh-ten" is not one of them.

I hate to reference wikipedia, but this is very concise:English Numeral Date Rules

"Two thousand ten" is acceptable, but so is "Two thousand and ten." I like "Twenty Hundred and ten" then best. I'm going to use it.