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Author Topic: Suggestion For A Name For This Decade: The "Oneties"
drgoodword
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Babbler # 3214

posted 09 November 2003 05:20 AM      Profile for drgoodword   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
We're four years into this new decade, and we still don't have a commonly used name for it. This is a problem.

In the previous century, with the massive increase in popular media and shared cultural consciousness (no matter how lofty your intellectual tastes, you know exactly what is meant by the term "voted off the Island," even if you never lowered yourself to watch the associated reality tv show), we developed the habit of measuring and defining our pop cultural cycles by decade. So the phrase "the fifties" instantly evokes unique images and sounds, clothing styles and car designs, and the same can be said for most of the decades of the twentieth century. The broadest unit of popular cultural time is the decade. And every decade needs a name.

But the name for the first decade of the twenty-first century is eluding us, because we are under the spell of a quirky naming paradigm that has established a pattern fitting only the latter eight decades of any given century, courtesy of the numerical plural suffix "ties." So you have your twenties, your thirties, your forties, your fifties, your sixties (if you remember them), your seventies, your eighties and your nineties, but when you rollover the century and start fresh, what have you got? The aughties?...the zeds?...the naughties (as a number of more salacious would-be decade namers have suggested)? None of these seem right.

In fact, nothing will seem right until we pick a name and we all start using it, because the interval 0-9 doesn't have a neat, one-word dictionary term like 70-79 does, and nothing was established as common usage in the previous century, perhaps because the decade as a unit of cultural time wasn't all that meaningful a hundred years ago. So we need a name that follows the established pattern--that ends in "ties"--and that seems to be a natural part of decade numbering.

Here's my suggestion: oneties. Sure, it's not a real word (for now), and it sounds a little funny (though not as funny as naughties), but it fits the two criteria I've suggested. Take a look at this new decade name "in order," and I think you'll see it's not such a bad choice (I've also taken the liberty here of re-naming the next decade in order to maintain a uniform decadal nomenclature):

oneties
tenties
twenties
thirties
forties
fifties
sixties
seventies
eighties
nineties

...and back to the oneties.

Hey, I'm not saying it's perfect. But if four years of this decade have already gone by and the novelists, poets, journalists and other masters of the word that capture and define our language haven't yet come up with a name that's stuck for the first decade of a new century, then why not give "oneties" a chance? By the time you've read this far, you'll probably find that "oneties" sounds almost right.


From: Toronto | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 09 November 2003 12:50 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
But there's no "one" in most of the "oneties."

Why not the "oh!s"?

As in "Oh!"

Or even the "Uh oh!s."

I am already often saying things like, "Back in oh-one/oh-two," etc.

We could, of course, call ourselves the pre-teens.


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Hinterland
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posted 09 November 2003 01:04 PM      Profile for Hinterland        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
This is turning out to be such a non-decade, I think most of us would rather forget it, rather than name it. I have a feeling it will never get a name until we're well into the 20's (...I'll be in my sixties by then), and we'll just call it "the dark ages".

[ 09 November 2003: Message edited by: Hinterland ]


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DrConway
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posted 09 November 2003 04:12 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think they used to call it the double oughts, which is as good a name as any.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Sine Ziegler
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posted 09 November 2003 04:22 PM      Profile for Sine Ziegler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It should be called the " Two Oh's"

Actually no it shouldn't. I don't like the "Oh" in anything.

It'll likely be called the first decade of the new millenium. Decade One.


From: Calgary | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
al-Qa'bong
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posted 09 November 2003 04:46 PM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
"The zeros."

We could borrow from the 20th century and call our times the "Null Epoch."

"Elizabethan" has been done (as in "Edwardian")...so could we use, uh, "Charlestan?"


From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
banquosghost
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posted 09 November 2003 09:34 PM      Profile for banquosghost     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
the last decade
From: north vancouver, bc | Registered: Oct 2003  |  IP: Logged
beluga2
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posted 10 November 2003 04:53 AM      Profile for beluga2     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
For better or worse, I seem to have settled on "Double-Ohs." (Or, written, "00's").

Either that or just The Decade With No Name.

How 'bout "The Dubya Decade"? "The Shrubian Era"?

If Richard Perle had his way, we'd all be forced to call it "The First 10% of the New American Century". [insert vomit smiley]


From: vancouvergrad, BCSSR | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
Willowdale Wizard
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posted 10 November 2003 10:38 AM      Profile for Willowdale Wizard   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
the naughty oughties
From: england (hometown of toronto) | Registered: Jan 2003  |  IP: Logged
Albireo
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posted 10 November 2003 02:01 PM      Profile for Albireo     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
the zilchties
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BleedingHeart
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posted 10 November 2003 02:47 PM      Profile for BleedingHeart   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The turn of the century. Oops I think thats been used before
From: Kickin' and a gougin' in the mud and the blood and the beer | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
rob.leblanc
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posted 10 November 2003 02:52 PM      Profile for rob.leblanc     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The decade that dare not speak it's name
From: Where am I? Where are YOU? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Scott Piatkowski
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posted 10 November 2003 04:09 PM      Profile for Scott Piatkowski   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The decade formerly known as "Prince".
From: Kitchener-Waterloo | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Mr. Magoo
guilty-pleasure
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posted 10 November 2003 04:43 PM      Profile for Mr. Magoo   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
10. "The Dry Run"

9. "The 'My Bad' Decade"

8. "The 10 Years of Living Dangerously"

7. "The New, Improved, Longer-lasting, Minty, Tartar Control Family-Sized Decade (tm)"

6. "The 10 Years Before We Got Hovercars and Video Phones"

5. "The Good Old Days, When Movies Were Only $15" <-- spoken by codgers in 2065

4. "The Millenial Hangover"

3. "Y2K + N, where 0<N<9"

2. "The Little Decade That Could"

1. "The Genetically Modified Salad Days"


From: ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø, | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged
'topherscompy
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posted 12 November 2003 05:54 PM      Profile for 'topherscompy        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
keeping with the "-ties" theme, an appropriate name might be "the insaneties"
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No Yards
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posted 12 November 2003 09:19 PM      Profile for No Yards   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The Terrorist-ties??

The 9-11-ties??

The war years?

The age of the decline of the American empire?

[ 12 November 2003: Message edited by: No Yards ]


From: Defending traditional marriage since June 28, 2005 | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged

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