Lost Journal

Humor Column
by Tim Mollen
January 10, 2010

Let’s not Let a Second Decade Go Nameless

Journal Entry:  January 1, 2010 (age 40)

Who would have thought we would finish the last decade without settling on a name for it?  Let’s try, as an enlightened people, to do better with the 2010 - 2019 decade. (We ought not let the aughts go for naught.)  So far, we can’t even decide how to say the name of this YEAR.  Is it “twenty ten,” or “two thousand ten?”  I vote for the former, for two reasons.   First of all, it’s shorter and easier to say.  More importantly, the alternative sets a pattern that would have had us referring to 1984 as “one thousand nine hundred eighty-four.”  Think of the time we would have wasted in Orwellian book clubs!

But back to the question of naming the current decade. Either history or my mother will record that I came up with many of these ideas:

• “Now.”
  

• “Then.” (This “Then” will be used later than now – that is to say, then – which will also be called “Now,” to avoid confusion.)
  

• The “Tens” would provide a needed stimulus to our nation’s faltering Bo Derek poster industry.  It would be a fitting reward for Bo’s longstanding contributions as a walking stimulus package.
  

• Referring to the decade as “Teenage Time” would give all of us license to drive poorly, be mean to our parents, and use the phrase “Duh, as if!” in business communications.
  

• Hitting the “Double Digits” has the positive connotation of a playa scoring the cell numbers of two shorties in one night, yo.
  

• A Papal encyclical may force Roman Catholics to refer to this decade as “The 104,520^th Through 104,988^th Weeks of Ordinary Time.”   In a nod to practicality, the Pope may make adding “In the Year of Our Lord” to the end of this phrase optional (except on Fridays).
  

• Corporate sponsorship might be a way to raise some significant government revenue.  Think “Domino’s Anno Domini!”
  

• Typing “The Twittering Teens” would, ironically, use up 14 percent of the characters allowable in a tweet.  Ashton-following twits on Twitter would be a-flutter about truncated tweets.
  

• “Gus.”
  

• Use of the “Tensies” offers two pronunciations that could be alternated, depending on the context.  If the economy tanks again, we invade Yemen, and an ultra-conservative immigration ban causes the forcible exile of all but pure-blooded Native Americans, the “Tensies” would be pronounced with a tense “s” sound in the middle. If happy days return and cause a baby boom, we could all scrunch up our faces, raise the pitch of our voices and say “Tensies” with a “z” sound, or easily expand it to “Tensy-wensies.”
  

• “The Approximate Sesquicentennial of the Mid-point of the Victorian Era.”
  

• To follow the “Dubya Double Oh’s,” we could honor the First Daughters with the “Obama Tweens’ Tweens.”
  

• “The Years After Which Arthur C. Clarke Said We Would Make Contact.”  (Also, sprach Zarathrusta.)
  

• The “Twenty-tens.”  Hey, that one might actually work…

© 2010 Tim Mollen

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