A New Decade
A very good question from one of our readers.
The decade that we have just left was the naughties and in ten year time we will enter the twenties but what shall we call the next decade? The teens only work for the second half of the decade and the tens just sounds wrong.
November 30th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
The teenies could apply to both: at the beginning of the decade the pluralisation of the word teeny would provide recognition of the fact that 11 and 12 are slightly smaller than true teenage years, and for the rest of the decade the “ie” could serve as a linguistic alignment with the twenties, thirties etc, or alternatively as an expression of fondness, depending on how we feel.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I’m an expert in time. I notice an anomaly in the questioners question. The statement “the decade that we have just left was the naughties” was posted in 2009. As we wont leave the ‘naugties’ for another month or so, can I have contact details for the questioner so I can nip round and beat them up? You see, I’m the only time traveller in this village, and I can’t have any pretenders cramping my style.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Interesting. In the 1900s this was referred to as the Edwardian period, but during that decade they had far more important things to worry about than what to call a decade.
Now, I would suggest that in some 10 or so years time we will have another issue. We cannot call the period 2020 - 2029 ‘the twenties’, because that will cause confusion with the 1920s. What are we to do ?
November 30th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
To the village time traveller,
I am an expert in apostrophes. I fear that use of your time machine may have caused you to inadvertently miss the lesson on apostrophe placement. Can I suggest that you nip back and participate, for the purpose of clarity in future communication?
December 1st, 2009 at 10:13 am
Punctuation aside, Consultant G’s comments have raised another question for me which the time traveller may be able to answer: Does time go faster these days for God?
I have always (self centredly, perhaps) taken the decade referred to as the most recent unless specified otherwise, for example assuming the expression “80s fashion revival” to mean shoulder pads rather than princess line. But for someone as old as God, things could get quite confusing. Can anyone advise how he keeps track?
December 1st, 2009 at 10:05 pm
I think the simple answer to the question would be to doubt gods existence but that would be too easy. I think the best way of answering the question is to look at how the brain registers time (assuming god has a brain). To date, no part of the brain that records time has been found and it is therefore thought that brain measures time on the basis of the details recorded. The brain records more details when something new or different is being done, the more it records the quicker time passing is perceived. Thus when you are a small child time passes more slowly as more things are new and the opposite when you do something repetitive.
Therefore I would suggest that God is bored and time passes slowly for him - and doubt he uses the Gregorian calender!