Saturday, January 02, 2010

LET'S GET THIS RIGHT, OR SHOULD I SAY CORRECT?

How do you say "2010"?
Coming off of "two thousand nine," you'll probably say "two thousand ten." In fact, 4 out of 5 YouTube videos randomly reviewed by The Chronicle have people pronouncing it that way.
But you would be wrong, so wrong, according to the National Association of Good Grammar.
"NAGG has decided to step in and decree that (2010) should officially be pronounced 'twenty ten,' and all subsequent years should be pronounced as 'twenty eleven,' 'twenty twelve,' etc.," proclaims the association's news release.
The National Association of Good Grammar - essentially a guy named Tom Torriglia and some friends who also paid attention in English class - say people have been mispronouncing the year for 10 years.
"NAGG is here to put everybody back on the correct path," Torriglia said by phone from his home in San Francisco. "We lost the battle when we went from 1999 to 2000 - but now we're hoping to win the war."
The "20" should have been pronounced "twenty" all along, he said, pointing out that every year in the 20th century was pronounced "nineteen something."
" 'Twenty' follows 'nineteen.' 'Two thousand' does not follow 'nineteen.' It's logical."

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