Two-thousand ten vs twenty-ten

I’ve often thought it would be fun, if I weren’t so dignified and respectable, to climb into an aluminum-foil jumpsuit and re-create a scene from a certain sci-fi movie that persists in my memory:

The disoriented time traveler finds himself on a barren desert road. He walks into a lonely, one-pump gas station and asks the grizzled old proprietor, “What year is it?” And without batting an eye, the old man answers, “Why, it’s 1948!” — as if he got that particular question as often as “Is this the road to Pearsonville?”

Last week, minus the silver jumpsuit, I got to ask that same question. And not because I’d just emerged from a time-space vortex — I simply don’t know how I’m supposed to say “2010.” Now that we’re several days into the new year, we ought to have developed some sort of consensus. But what is it? So I started asking: “What year is it?”

The two options would seem to be “two-thousand ten,” in keeping with the habit of the past 10 years (“two-thousand [and] nine,” “two- thousand [and] eight,” etc.), or “twenty-ten,” in keeping with the habit of the thousand years or so before that (“ten sixty-six,” “fourteen-ninety-two,” “seventeen-seventy-six,” etc.)

Liz Rodriguez was trying to pay for her car wash when I cornered her with the big question. “It’s twenty-ten,” she said. “Two-thousand-ten takes longer to say. My name is Elizabeth but I call myself Liz. Same reason.”

Gilbert Espinoza, the car wash customer service manager, observed with flawless logic that because last year was two-thousand-nine, this had to be two-thousand-ten.

Vanessa Guitierrez, working behind the cash register, observed that because brevity usually wins the day, this has to be twenty-ten. “Nobody said two-thousand-nine. It was oh-nine, oh-eight, oh-seven. Same deal.”

Yvonne Copeland received divine guidance on the issue. It was spelled out right on the front of last Sunday’s church program at Calvary Bible: “How to win in twenty-ten.” The shorthand answer, in case the Rev. Ted Duncan accuses you of napping through the sermon: Immerse yourself in God’s word.

Mae Leslie Strelich started the new year one way and then changed course. “I’ve actually discussed this with my 19-year-old son. He said, ‘Mom, it’s twenty-ten.’ So I guess I must have started off saying ‘two-thousand-ten.’”

It’s good to know the preferences of younger folk. This is their decade, their century, their millennium, not ours. So this matter is settled — or will be, as soon as I walk over to this teenage girl to get linguistic confirmation. Oops.

“Two-thousand-ten,” declared Brooklyn Lowe, a high school sophomore. “Twenty-ten makes thirty!”

“Yeah, two-thousand-ten rolls off the tongue,” said her mother, Wandra Lowe. “No doubt there.”

Well, there’s plenty of doubt. In 1968, Stanley Kubrick gave us “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and the titular year was pronounced “two-thousand-one.” But in 1969, the singing duo Zager and Evans warned us, “In the year twenty-five, twenty-five, if man is still alive ...” Pop culture isn’t particularly helpful here.

In fact, contradictory information is everywhere. One of county government’s most important planning documents is the 2010 General Plan, and everyone seems to pronounce it “twenty-ten.” The Winter Olympics begin Feb. 12 and the organizing committee is already referring to the big event as “Vancouver twenty-ten.”

But car makers, with a few exceptions, are talking up their “two-thousand-ten” models. That’s the auditory version supported by David Crystal, the author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. However, he notes, 2011 will be "twenty eleven." Go figure.

Then there’s the influence of Spanish, which can’t help but bleed a little into ordinary, daily English. KKEY-TV anchor-reporter Jaqueline Hurtado says she has heard it only one way: “Dos-mil-diez — two-thousand ten. You don’t hear people say, ‘viente diez.’” But perhaps she doesn’t go to the same car wash I do.

These are not idle questions. The answers, I think, speak to our comfort with linguistic tradition, whether we place more value on logic or convention, and whether logic and convention even apply to year-naming.

My final tally was 15 to 7 for “twenty ten” (with two inexplicable votes for “oh-ten”), but I am less convinced than when I started. I may have to ask again next week. Maybe I’ll try the foil jumpsuit.

rprice@bakersfield.com