10-12-2022, 09:07 AM
I find it interesting that people seem perfectly happy to talk about 'the twenty-twelve Olympics' and 'the twenty-twenty U.S. election' but find 'twenty-oh-eight' to be a dissatisfying construction. I'm in the (presumably relatively small camp) of using 'two-thousand-and-X' across the board, whether it's referring to a year in the 'noughties', tens, or twenties. I suppose, thinking about it, it's peculiar that I'd say 'two-thousand-and-twelve', but I'd never refer to the Titanic having sunk in 'one-thousand-nine-hundred-and-twelve' or 'nineteen-hundred-and-twelve', but always as simply 'nineteen-twelve'. Ultimately, I suppose, it doesn't matter providing the other party understands what you mean. The English language is littered with oddities and irregularities, as, I'm sure anyone who does not have English as their first language on this forum would be only too happy to attest, having tried to learn it.