Our quirky university president tried very hard to make “aughty-aught” happen for 2000. It did not catch on.
Comment on How long until we can start shorting years to 2 numbers again?
swordgeek@lemmy.ca 1 day agoMost English-spealking people outside the US said ‘aught’ instead of ‘oh’, but definitely about 2005 the ‘two thousand and’ syntax evaporated.
LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
porcoesphino@mander.xyz 1 day ago
I think Australian’s usually say “oh”. Signed an Aussie that’s spent enough time abroad to confuse himself on what they actually say
bryndos@fedia.io 1 day ago
In UK I've mostly have heard 'naughties' for the decade sine about 1999.
But I rarely heard "naughty X" as a year name unless someone was being even more deliberately daft. I'd say "oh" would be most common here after "two thousand and X" too in my experience.
I always thought that "'aught" was an American contraction of 'naught'.
"aught" in old timey-English can mean "other" or "else" or even "anything". In my local dialect we still say "owt" meaning "anything" as an opposite of "nowt" nothing".