I grew up in the 90s and I remember being able to truncate the year down to just 2 numbers when talking about years within the current millennium. It seems like we’re still saying twenty before every year and I’m just wondering when that will change.
12/22/25
Just do it.
IMHO when the two digit year equals the median age of all living people.
In other words, when the people who are born in 2xxx become the majority. That’s probably somewhere in the thirties.
(Not counting the ones who use a different year number, for example Chinese, Jews…)
I hope never so we never have Y2K again
Boy do I have bad news
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_formatting_and_storage_bugs
I started this year, and I think you can refer to years as far back as '22 without it feeling awkward.
Me too.
Considering my kids already refer to pre millennial days as the ancient 19’s, you can already do it with the younger crowd.
You can now …it’s the 20s
It’s important to say the “20” prefix so that viewers will know that we’re set in “the future.”
I belive that change will come when both of us are dead. To me the 20s still mean 1920.
ISO8601 / RFC3339 gang represent. You’ll have to take four digit years from my cold, dead hands.
I prefer mm/yy/dd or 2013.158904109.
Spitting hot truth.
I’ve been doing it since '01 (pronounced “Oh-Won”). I thought everyone else has been too?
Most English-spealking people outside the US said ‘aught’ instead of ‘oh’, but definitely about 2005 the ‘two thousand and’ syntax evaporated.
Our quirky university president tried very hard to make “aughty-aught” happen for 2000. It did not catch on.
I think Australian’s usually say “oh”. Signed an Aussie that’s spent enough time abroad to confuse himself on what they actually say
Time to ruin your day. They’ve been calling that time period the “aughties”.
Time to ruin your day…
The words naughties and aughties are interchangeable and we have been calling them that since 2000.
Nah, I couldn’t even bring myself to say “twenty” something until 2013. Before that it was all like “two thousand and five”.
Still saying the twenty part. Not sure when that can fall away. Since I was around for the nineteens, maybe I’ll never stop.
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In the 30s you can start talking about the 20s. It will be annoying at first because people will try to be funny and/or get intentionally get confused that you’re talking about the 1920s.
I’d imagine talking the way you’re being nostalgic about will be in full swing by the 2040s.
You can now If you want. Who cares?
I wouldn’t start right now. That would be too drastic. At least leave it till tomorrow.
Just start by dropping it down to 3 numbers and see how you go from there.
My favourite year was 201, a lot happened.
That was my favorite decade
You can totally start now. Although, and maybe this is just a me thing, I’d feel like a massive bellend if I referred to something that happened in, for instance, 2021 as “in '21”.
I think I’d feel okay with “'01”, through to “'09”, then the teens feel weird again but only because it just feels weird to refer to a year as small as like… “'13”… although I don’t have that same problem with the naughties, maybe that’s because of the added “oh” making it seem like more than just a number? And then the twenties feel like big enough numbers to abbreviate but, yeah, again, I’d feel like a tool.
I guess it depends on what you’re talking about.
Most of my conversations are about computers and technology, so shortening to 25 from 2025 is obvious since 1925, 1825, etc. didn’t have technology involving an iPhone, Linux, etc.
But if we’re talking something like cars, you probably need to be specific. You won’t be able to say something like “I bought a ‘20 Ford” because that could be at least two different years.
In the English-speaking world, you can always shorten the year from 4 to 2 digits. But whether: 1) this causes confusion or 2) do you/anyone care if it does, are the points of contention. The first is context-dependent: if a customer service agent over the phone is trying to confirm your date of birth, there’s no real security issue if you only say the 2 digit year, because other info would have to match as well.
If instead you are presenting ID as proof of age to buy alcohol, there’s a massive difference between 2010 and 1910. An ID card and equivalent documentation must use a four digit year, when there is no other available indicator of the century.
For casual use, like signing your name and date on a holiday card, the ambiguity of the century is basically negligible, since a card like that is enjoyed at the time that it’s read, and isn’t typically stashed away as a 100-year old memento.
That said, I personally find that in spoken and written English, the inconvenience of the 4 digit year is outweighed by the benefit of properly communicating with non-American English users. This is because us American speak and write the date in a non-intuitive fashion, which is an avoidable point of confusion.
Typical Americans might write “7/1/25” and say “July first, twenty five”. British folks might read that as 7 January, or (incorrectly) 25 January 2007. But then for the special holiday of “7/4/25”, Americans optionally might say “fourth of July, twenty five”. This is slightly less confusing, but a plausible mishearing by the British over a scratchy long-distance telephone call would be “before July 25”, which is just wrong.
The confusion is minimized by a full 4 digit year, which would leave only the whole day/month ordering as ambiguous. That is, “7/1/2025” or “1/7/2025”.
Though I personally prefer RFC3339 dates, which are strictly YYYY-mm-dd, using 4 digit years, 2 digit months, and 2 digit days. This is always unambiguous, and I sign all paperwork like this, unless it explicitly wants a specific format for the date.
