The Noughties are here

By: JOHN HUNNEMAN - Staff Writer | Saturday, January 7, 2006 11:16 PM PST ∞

Good Sunday morning to you. We'll be grabbing breakfast in the living room this morning as we take down the Christmas tree.

It started out innocently enough ---- water cooler kind of conversation really ---- when my colleague Dave Downey mentioned he'd heard a newscaster on the radio refer to the new year as Twenty-O-Six.

"That sounded kind of strange," he said. "But I guess that's the way they do it there."

I'm a Two-Thousand-Six kind-of-guy myself.

However, way back in the last century we called it Nineteen-Ninety-Seven, not One-Thousand-Nine-Hundred- Ninety-Seven, so I guess Twenty-O-Six, should naturally follow.

The conversation then turned to exactly what we're calling this current decade, now more than half over.

Until now, we ---- at least in America ---- have avoided lumping the years between 2000-2009 into one catchy phrase, such as the "Roaring 20s," "Swinging 70s," or even something as simple as the 40s, 80s or 90s.

Listen to one of those "mix" radio stations and you'll hear "... playing the greatest hits of the 80s, the 90s and today."

But what happens five years from now when today's hits are yesterday's classics?

"Playing the greatest hits of the 90s, those years in the middle and the teens," probably won't fly.

Before this decade began, several trial balloons were floated in the media to try and find a zippy name for the years ahead. Suggestions included the zips, zeros, ohs, double-Os and even the aughts ---- as in Nineteen-aught-six ---- which is what some called this same period 100 years before.

But nothing stuck and so here were are ---- in this bling-bling media-savvy age ---- with zip, nada, nothing to call the decade.

This seems to be an American problem, because elsewhere they've got it wired.

Welcome to the "Noughties."

I kid you naught.

"Nought," is a word the British use for the figure '0'.

Do an Internet search and you'll find loads of references to the "Greatest Hits of the Noughties," as well as dating guides and investment advice for the Noughties, most of them from Web sites in the United Kingdom.

The BBC refers to the decade using the term, as do several dictionaries.

Great Britain's Social Issues Research Center recently commissioned a report called "The Noughty Years" to look at social trends and patterns of behavior that define this era.

They're Noughties down-under as well.

Deborah Hope, writing last month in The Australian, a national daily newspaper, opined "halfway through the Noughties, diversity and eclecticism are the buzzwords and instant gratification the name of the game ..."

So why haven't the Noughties caught on here?

Maybe it has to do with the current occupant of the White House.

Now if Bill Clinton were still president ...?

Contact columnist John Hunneman at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2603, or hunneman@californian.com.

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