# In the noughts - In the noughties - twenty-teens [decades 2000-2010 and 2010-2020]



## James Brandon

I have heard the expressions:-

_In the noughts..._

_In the noughties..._

This relates to the need to identify the decade after the year 2000 - as in, "in the 1990s" or "in the 90s", and "in the 80s", and "in the 30s". 

As we know, we have had a problem with this since 2000 because it sounds a bit odd.

Similarly, many people will now say "in 06" (meaning "in 2006"), and pronounced "O" as in the letter "O" and "six". This is easier to use and stands for "in 82", for "in 1982", etc. 

How commonly is "in the noughts" (or "noughties") used? Any alternatives? What are we going to do for the 2010-2020 decade? (I am already worrying sick about it. )


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## bibliolept

I would not call it common in the USA, though I can't suggest any commonly-accepted alternatives. It's apparently more common in other English-speaking countries, following the BBC use of the term. This probably is due to the fact that US English speakers (and Canadians, I believe) are not in the habit of referring to zero as "nought."
Likely, only someone who's read about this problem will quickly recognize the meaning of "noughts" or "noughties."
I wonder what they called the decade following 1900?


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## The Scrivener

I heard this discussed on the radio recently.  People were in favour of saying "the noughties".  For the future I think the twenty-tens and twenty-twenties will be OK.


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## Randisi.

I know that, say, 1908 was sometimes called "aught eight."

Would this be an American version of "naught eight"?

Either way, it would sound incredibly quaint and old-fashioned in AE these days.


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## bibliolept

"Aught" is indeed more common in the US, but it sounds terribly outdated in most any usage. However, you might read "double aught" in print to describe something prevalent or characteristic of this decade.


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## wildan1

On the BBC I heard a reporter speak about_ "the eighties, the nineties and the naughties…",_ the latter term referring to the decade of 2000-2010.

I have never heard this term before, and found it clever/funny. The reporter, however, wasn't sounding playful--are there places where _the naughties_ is a standard term?


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## sdgraham

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
*noughties */ˈnɔːtɪz/﻿ 
▶_plural noun__informal _the decade from 2000 to 2009.
– origin 1990s: from nought, on the pattern of _twenties_, _thirties_, etc.

*[...]*


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## pops91710

Haha! And all this time I thought the Roaring Twenties were _*"The Naughties" *_


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## wildan1

Aha--now I see our own WR dictionary has _"noughties"_ -- using the British spelling of naught.

Thanks, sdgraham. I guess I'll have to brush up on my BE spellings.


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## Fabulist

wildan1 said:


> On the BBC I heard a reporter speak about_ "the eighties, the nineties and the naughties…",_ the latter term referring to the decade of 2000-2010.
> 
> I have never heard this term before, and found it clever/funny. The reporter, however, wasn't sounding playful--are there places where _the naughties_ is a standard term?



If there is, it's not the U.S. where we don't use "nought" = 0, so "noughties" doesn't make any sense, and it's not amusing, either.

I think my _grandmother_ (1880–1966; born in Canada but moved to Michigan at an early age; Swiss parents) used a word for 0 that I don't know how to spell but that sounded like the verb "ought," but she's been dead for 57 years.


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## ewie

This isn't _exactly_ the same thing, but it's as near as dammit so I'm going to stick it in here.
Yesterday I read a short story by the American humorist George Ade (1866-1944), _Self-made Hezekiah and His Message of Hope to This Year's Graduates_, published in 1903.  The protagonist is a self-made millionaire, born in the 1830s, who, in 1903


> was invited to address the Class of Naughty-Three at the local Business College.


Well, that's it.


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## James Brandon

To clarify after re-reading the earlier posts, people say, in the UK, 'in the noughties' as a reference to 'nought', which means 'zero', not 'naughties'. I believe Americans do not use 'nought' to say 'zero'. I did not think the spelling 'naught' existed (for 'zero'). 

What do people say for the decade from 2010 to now? I suppose we will know when it is finished, after 2020. 'In the tens'?


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## london calling

James Brandon said:


> What do people say for the decade from 2010 to now? I suppose we will know when it is finished, after 2020. 'In the tens'?


Well, we don't say 'in the tens' to refer to the years from 1910 to 1919 so I don't really see why anyone would use it for the years from 2010 to 2019, but you never know, I suppose.


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## sound shift

James Brandon said:


> What do people say for the decade from 2010 to now? I suppose we will know when it is finished, after 2020. 'In the tens'?


Like lc, I don't think "in the tens" would be used. "The second decade of the twenty-first century" is what I would provisionally say. The matter will be more pressing come the end of the decade, and with any luck I will by then have thought of a snappier expression.


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## heypresto

Twenty-teens?

'Nineteen-teens' would have been a bit of a mouthful.


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## london calling

heypresto said:


> Twenty-teens?
> 
> 'Nineteen-teens' would have been a bit of a mouthful.


Do you mean 'tens'?


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## ewie

James Brandon said:


> I did not think the spelling 'naught' existed (for 'zero').


It does

_Nineteen-tens, twenty-tens ..._


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## James Brandon

So, in that sense, people can indeed say 'in the naughties' and mean 'in the noughties'...


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## ewie

I suppose they _could_ do, if they didn't mind sounding a bit Carry-On.


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## James Brandon

Obviously, it would be ambiguous... but, strictly speaking, it would be the same as 'in the noughties'.


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## london calling

James Brandon said:


> ... but, strictly speaking, it would be the same as 'in the noughties'.


Maybe not for the Brits. 
I personally only use the spelling 'naught' in expressions such as 'all for naught'.


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## Oddmania

What about "the twenty-Os", or simply "the early two-thousands" (for the 2000s)?


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## James Brandon

I suppose 'the two-thousands' or 'the 2000s' would work.


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## wildan1

James Brandon said:


> What do people say for the decade from 2010 to now? I suppose we will know when it is finished, after 2020. 'In the tens'?


Around me I hear people call this decade _the twenty-teens._


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## london calling

I've never heard that but the Urban Dictionary has it (all one word: twentyteens).


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## heypresto

That's good to hear. 



heypresto said:


> Twenty-teens?
> 
> 'Nineteen-teens' would have been a bit of a mouthful.


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## bibliolept

wildan1 said:


> Around me I hear people call this decade _the twenty-teens._


I encounter "two thousand tens" regularly, less so "twenty-teens."

I would joke that "twenty tens" sounds almost like I'm transliterating French, but I do hear that one as well.


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## AnythingGoes

Just yesterday heard someone refer to the first decade of this century as the _aughts. _It seems to have become pretty common in the States.

The years of the second decade are the _teens. _If I wanted to clarify which century I was talking about I'd say _the nineteen-teens_ or _the twenty-teens._


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## ewie

/
I wouldn't *dream* of using the word _teens_.  They're _tens_, just like _twenties, thirties, forties _and so on.


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## Edinburgher

ewie said:


> I wouldn't *dream* of using the word _teens_.


 "The teens" would not describe a decade but a period of seven years (thirteen to nineteen).


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## london calling

ewie said:


> /
> I wouldn't *dream* of using the word _teens_.  They're _tens_, just like _twenties, thirties, forties _and so on.


Nor I, but it's in the Urban Dictionary so it will traverse the pond sooner or later.


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## AnythingGoes

ewie said:


> /
> I wouldn't *dream* of using the word _teens_.  They're _tens_, just like _twenties, thirties, forties _and so on.


Huh, another BrE/AE divide. We colonials always called the years 1913-1919 the _teens_ before the latest iteration of teens made that appellation obsolete.


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## bibliolept

AnythingGoes said:


> Huh, another BrE/AE divide. We colonials always called the years 1913-1919 the _teens_ before the latest iteration of teens made that appellation obsolete.


As an AE speaker, I invariably make do with the relative imprecision of the "nineteen-tens."


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## ewie

I don't follow you, Bibbles: in what way is _nineteen-tens_ 'imprecise'?


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## bibliolept

ewie said:


> I don't follow you, Bibbles: in what way is _nineteen-tens_ 'imprecise'?


In the sense that the teens are a subset of the nineteen-tens. "Teens" describes a smaller range of years.


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## James Brandon

I have never heard 'the teens' used in British English about the 1913-1919 period, which is, in fact, the First World War + 1 year at either end... The 'inter-war period' is obviously used for the 1918/1939 years.


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## Edinburgher

bibliolept said:


> In the sense that the teens are a subset of the nineteen-tens. "Teens" describes a smaller range of years.


Yes, but the original question was concerned  with how to refer to the first decade of a century.  It is "the teens" that is imprecise, not "the tens".
I find it hard to imagine that anyone who specifically means the 13-19 period would want to call it the tens.


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## bibliolept

Edinburgher said:


> Yes, but the original question was concerned  with how to refer to the first decade of a century.  It is "the teens" that is imprecise, not "the tens".
> I find it hard to imagine that anyone who specifically means the 13-19 period would want to call it the tens.


My main point is that I am fine with nineteen-tens and have had no need to resort to anything else. I don't think I've run into "teens' much at all, either for that period or that decade in the last or the current century.


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## James Brandon

Having re-read the Thread, I think we can agree that 'the noughties' is established when referring to the 2000 - 2010 decade. 

For the following decade, i.e. the current one that is not finished yet, I imagine the easiest will be to say 'the twenty-tens', and write it 'the 2010s' -- easier than using 'two thousand' in the formulation, anyway. 

I cannot say I find the use of 'teens' convincing, personally, which could actually be used when referring to the present slot, i.e. the period 2012 - 2019. I have never heard it, which does not mean it is not used... [The English slang website quoted is unreliable, by the way, but 'teens' may be used, more particularly in the USA.]


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## Edinburgher

bibliolept said:


> My main point is that I am fine with nineteen-tens


Yes, so am I.  Now there only remain the nineteen/twenty-zeroes to sort out. 
"The nineteen-hundreds" sounds more like a century than a decade, so can only be used where context makes it abundantly clear that you mean a decade.


James Brandon said:


> I think we can agree that 'the noughties' is established when referring to the 2000 - 2010 decade.


I'm not sure that's the case except in the sense of "established" that means that some people have occasionally used the term.  It simply strikes me as far too jocular to have been in wide-spread serious use.
Subject to the same context caveat as above, "the two thousands" or "the twenty hundreds" seem rather more likely.  I suspect many people would just avoid labelling those decades at all, for fear of sounding silly. I know I have.


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## James Brandon

Regarding 'the noughties', I agree: it does sound silly. I would avoid using it, particularly in writing, if the said writing was formal. When I said established, I meant, really, that you hear it, and that there does not seem to be a ready-to-use alternative. A lot of people avoid referring to the decade in question altogether, because there is no satisfactory term that is deemed 'correct' and that does not sound silly -- I agree. There was not this problem with, say, 'the 1980s' or 'the 1990s'.


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## ewie

James Brandon said:


> A lot of people avoid referring to the decade in question altogether, because there is no satisfactory term that is deemed 'correct' and that does not sound silly


_The first decade of the 19th/20th/21st century_ is what I've always used.  Not silly ... but admittedly not brief either


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## James Brandon

Well, precisely, if you say 'the first decade of the 21st century', which is as long-winded as it gets, it illustrates the fact there is no short form that is available -- i.e. none that works in any context and does not sound silly. 'In the noughties' is established only insofar as there is no practical alternative.


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## ewie

Ahem, _the first decade of the 21st century_ is, rather, as short as it gets.  The most long-winded would be _that period of ten years (or decade, as such a period is commonly known, or decennium, as it is far less commonly known) which, with its starting point at midnight on the 1st of January_ etc. etc. etc.


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## James Brandon

What I meant, as was clear to most readers, I believe, was that there is no _accepted phrase_ that appears to work (e.g.: 'the 1980s' about the decade between 1980 and 1990), given the fact it has to be recognised that 'in the noughties' does sound a bit silly. Beyond that, there are no limits to how pedantic one can wish to be: the sky is the limit.


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## Edinburgher

James Brandon said:


> What I meant, as was clear to most readers


Don't mind ewie, he's just being *noughty*.


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## ewie

Eau contrary! I merely thought that


> 'the first decade of the 21st century', which is as long-winded as it gets


meant


> _the first decade of the 21st century_ is the longest possible way of expressing the idea.


My contention is that far from being the longest, it's the shortest. (... without recourse to _the noughties_.)


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## bibliolept

Does anyone have any resources that suggests what the actual levels of acceptance of the different terms are? If common use hasn't coalesced behind one, say in AE, then the best recommendation we can give people is indeed to refer to those years as the first decade — or the previous one, for a couple more years.

I just don't think I ever run into any of the noughts/naught variants myself with any regularity. I'm happy to use "the two-thousands": Or are other people running into that word being used to describe the entire millennium with any frequency?


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## ewie

I'm not sure I've heard or read _the two-thousands _any more than I've heard or read _the nineteen-teens_ or _twenty-teens_ ... which is to say 'any more than *never*'


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## Edinburgher

ewie said:


> Eau contrary!


I meant noughty as in naughty/mischievous.


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## ewie

I thought you meant _noughty_ as in 'nowty'


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## RCLB

Hello everyone! Can I say "the tens" for the period from 1910 to 1919 and "the two thousand and tens" for the period from 2010 to 2019? And what about the centuries, 1100/1400/1900... "the eleven/fourteen/nineteen hundreds"?


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## James Brandon

For 1910 to 1919, you would say 'the 1910s'. For 2010 to 2019, I suppose one would say 'the 2010s'. I must say I've never heard it in conversation, however. It sounds odd but would be the logical form. Other contributors may disagree or have better suggestions. 

To clarify, 'the 1910s' is pronounced, 'the nineteen tens', and 'the 2010s' would be pronounced 'the twenty tens'. 

As for the Middle Ages, it is not an immediate worry, is it? We have enough on our plate in 2020 not to worry about 1400. Then again, the days of the plague have come back!


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## RCLB

Thank you a lot  my friend but why  I can say  'the nineteen tens' for the period from  1910 to 1919 and not "the tens" , if we normally say "the twenties" (1920 - 1929), "the thirties (1930 - 1939), "the forties", "the fifties", etc.? And you've just told me that  'the 2010s' would be pronounced 'the twenty tens', but couldn't I also say "the two thousand tens" as a second alternative? I'm not a native English speaker so it's a bit confusing to me. Sorry if I ask too many questions.


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## James Brandon

Other contributors may want to comment. I suppose you are right and you should be able to say 'the tens' (as in 'the twenties' or 'the fifties'); because we are now in the 21st century, however, it may be a good idea to specify (in the *19*50s...). The 20th century is so, well, last century! 

And 'the two thousand tens' ought to be Ok, when you speak. The problem is that, as far as I am concerned, I cannot say I have heard any of those at all in conversation. They all sound odd, which is not to say they would be impossible to use or are never heard. In the last analysis, I believe they would be logical, if nothing else.

For any decade after 2000, it is still relatively recent, which could also explain why people are not referring to those decades in that way. Just a guess on my part. I wonder whether it is different in other languages, including your own (Portuguese).


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## RCLB

And what about from 2000 - 2009? Should I say "the twenty hundreds" or "the two thousands"?


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## James Brandon

I think you could say both. I must say I have not heard anyone use it, either in conversation, or on the radio... Other contributors may want to comment and offer more insight than I can, here. 

And we have time until the 3000-3009 decade! It gives us time to think about it... I will certainly be around, on this forum, to give my opinion in due course.


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## Logos14

I don't know of any scholarly historian (till quite recent times, at least) that uses 1800s to refer to the 19th century. It gives the impression that the speaker is unaccustomed to discussing or reading about historical events.


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## James Brandon

I suppose you are right, and this is more a way that people speak. In history books, one talks about 'the 17th century' or 'the 1400-1445 period', etc. But it is legitimate, I suppose, to wonder how those decades will be (or are being) referred to in speaking.


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