We Ought To Do It

"When are we?" I frequently ask others. "You're asking what time it is?" they usually reply. "No," I say, "When are we? In other words, what's the name of the decade in which we're now living?" "This is 2008, you idiot," they answer. "No," I say again, "What's the name of our DECADE? You say you were born in the eighties or the seventies or the sixties, etc., so in which decade was your child or grandchild, who was born last year, born?" "Well, the teens, I guess," they answer. "No," I say, "We we won't reach the decade called 'teens' until 2010. So what's our current decade?" "Er, I don't know," is their final reply.

That's my point. No one knows, no one speaks about it---because they don't have to. But they (we) will have to once we leave this decade, then start looking back and talking about it. So what to call it? The zeros? Awkward and unprecedented. Thus we have to go back a century to ask what Americans at that time called the first decade of the 20th century. The best I can tell is that those old folks usually called 1900 or 1901 to 1909 or 1910 "the aughts." Yes, "the aughts." "Aught" (sometimes spelled "ought") is the old-fashioned word for "zero" or "nothing." So there you are. Spread the word among your friends---we have only one or two more years before this cultural-linguistic problem kicks in. And to think that we have to rely on oldtimers for the answers. Sometimes it pays to be old.

-Old Gargoyle