IMPROVE YOUR WRITING AND SPEAKING!

 

Dear educated and literate Friend,

 

What year was it last year? If you said, Òtwo thousand nine,Ó you are dead wrong! You have shattered all the rules of fine English, should be ashamed, red-faced, and embarrassed. For you have committed one of the most common (popular) egregious blunders in the entire English-speaking world. Why? Because no yeardate ever contains the word Òthousand.Ó Never has, and never will.

     This common way of mis-referring to years is illiteracy, the mark of an uneducated person. The year 2009 is, correctly (and only this form is exclusively accurate and acceptable), Òtwenty-oh-nine.Ó

 

Here are the correct and only acceptable forms of the other years of this century:

 

This yearÉ  

2000        twenty hundred

2001         twenty-oh-one

2002         twenty-oh-two

2003         twenty-oh-three

2004         twenty-oh-four

2005         twenty-oh-five

2006         twenty-oh-six

2007         twenty-oh-seven

2008         twenty-oh-eight

2009         twenty-oh-nine

2010         twenty-ten

2011         twenty-eleven

2012         twenty-twelve,

etc.

***

Any year-date is correctly spoken only this way.   That is why no educated person would ever read the year Ò1492Ó as Òone thousand four hundred ninety-two.Ó  For precisely the same reason, no sophisticated or literate person would ever call the year 1776 Òone thousand seven hundred seventy-six.Ó 

     For any number containing the word ÒthousandÓ is referring to a quantity, not a year.  So, if you say, ÒI have two thousand six cars on my lot,Ó you are conveying how many cars you have, but are revealing nothing about the years of these cars. But if you want to convey the newness of the cars, say, ÒI have twenty-oh-nine and twenty-ten models on the lot.Ó 

     There are rules which are widely followed, and universally recommended, and these make language, with all its beautiful communications, possible.  And  even if everyone decides to ignore a rule, it does not simply vanish. So, if you choose to continue to ignore this one, you risk presenting yourself as an uneducated, illiterate person, who simply cannot or will not be taught.

*****

If you would like any related info, please call me, at (513-) 737-LOVE (5683).

***

Please make this campaign more successful by sending this to everyone whom you know.

***

LetÕs improve the world together!

***

Love,

a Franciscan Taoist

 

For inquiries or comments please direct to rmfrancis@juno.com