The decade is now half over....

by Leolaia 18 Replies latest jw friends

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  Leolaia

  For those of you who are not stunned thinking "Where has all the time gone?", what would you say about the decade we've now in? Do you think world conditions are worse than in the '90s? (I do). Do you like the music, fashions, pop culture, in this decade as opposed to the '90s? Did you think we'd reach the midpoint of this decade without another major terrorist attack in the US? (I didn't, back in the heady days of October 2001). Will the second half be better than the first half...or worse? What do you think of a decade of your life being defined by George W. Bush, as the '90s were defined by Clinton and the '80s were defined by Reagan?

  And what are we going to call this decade? Ideas? We seem to have gotten fine so far without an agreed-upon name for the decade. But when it is over and all said and done, we are going to look back on it and will need some sort of common name for it -- our pop-culture seems to demand it. When VH1 puts together an "I Love the 00s" show in circa 2012, how will the decade be pronounced? The Ohs? The Zeros? The Aughts -- or Aughties? Everything pretty much sucks. We are so used to two-syllable names (fourties, thirties, fifties, sixties, eighties, nineties) or three-syllable names (seventies), that saying "Ohs" sounds empty and unsatisfying. "Aughties" sucks too because we don't say "Aught-One" or "Aught-Two" as they did a century ago. My personal favorite is calling it the "Oh-Ohs". That kind of captures the perilous zeitgeist of this decade. Any other ideas?
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  czarofmischief

  I think that people will look back only remember the date of 9/11 - and that we went to war afterwards and won, like the Spanish American War with the Maine and invading Cuba. They won't even remember Iraq as being anything other than an interlude.

  The SECOND half of the decade will see the rise of the Anti-christ.

  CZAR
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  Narkissos

  On the linguistic issue: how do you call the decade 1900-1909? We call that les années mille neuf cent (the 80's, for instance, being les années quatre-vingt): so we have no problem at labelling the present decade les années deux mille.

  This being said, the "Oh-Oh" are fine to me. Or... what about the Naughties?
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  maybesbabies

  LOL Narkissos!!! Hmm, good question, Leo. I'm not too fond of how the last 5 years have been, I can only hope the next five are better. I didn't like the fashion, didn't like the music, didn't like much of the "Oh Oh's" at all. Ah well, perhaps I'm just a complainer! BTW, has anyone noticed that the greatest change in each decade tends to come in the last 5 years? I'm interested to see what will happen.
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  Forscher

  Hey !
  
  I am looking forward to the next one. The decade that includes the 100th anniversary of Armageddon ;-) should be a lot of fun!
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  Leolaia

  Why do things sound so poetic in French, Narkissos? LOL So what is this decade...les années deux mille zero cent? Incidentally, it is interesting that so far we don't say twenty-oh-five so much in English (as in nineteen-oh-five) but two thousand and five. We like saying "thousand," as in "Two thousand and one: A Space Odyssey". Maybe when we get into the next decade we still start saying "twenty-oh-fourteen" and so forth. It's weird that we use two different systems to refer to dates before and after 2000; we don't say "one thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine" to refer to "1999".

  I personally think the antichrist is already in office, czarofmischief. Maybesbabies....Oh, there's gotta be something to like in this decade. Movies have been good....Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Master and Commander, are some of my favorites. TV sucks tho. Television programming has been sinking more and more into the reality genre with little good drama and sitcom comedy; the worst aspect of it for me is how TLC and the Discovery Channel have dumped all their science and history shows for boring endless Monster Garage, While You Were Out, Trading Spaces, Monster Home, American Chopper, reality genre shows.... a little of it is okay, but now its virtually nothing but those shows! It's interesting that the reality buzz hasn't bottomed out yet....the evening game show craze has tho.
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  maybesbabies

  LOL!! You're right Leo, I like the movies you posted! I don't watch television, so perhaps I am jaded in this department. When I go to someones house, and they have all the reality crap on or whatever, I nearly harf!!!! There must be some good, perhaps I should look a little deeper for it!
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  Midget-Sasquatch

  How do I feel about GW in power? Lets see, the precedent set by his doctrine of the pre-emptive strike, the policy that pushes the idea of using a more diverse aresnal of nuclear weapons much like conventional arms, and his general I'll do what I want attitude....."Oh-Oh"

  TV programming this side of the millenium sucked. Then again I only get what comes over the free airwaves. So aside from the news, I have no desire to watch.....Well...ummm..okay there were two telenovellas...only two (recently) . But they're foreign so in my defense, I'm being cultured somewhat.

  I'll stop while I think I'm ahead and say nothing about music. Except that I found William Hung's rendition of She Bangs and Take me Out to the Ball Game sorta interesting to listen to .
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  AlanF

  I tend to think that by the end of G-W-Moron's present term, the US will be so fucked up that people who voted for him will vote against him, beginning yet another era of disoriented fucked-up-ness. But at least the Republicans won't be in power.

  AlanF
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  Narkissos

  So what is this decade...les années deux mille zero cent?

  No, just les années deux mille (= the "two thousand[s]"). Like les années mille neuf cent or les années dix-neuf cent for the decade 1900-1909.

  Incidentally, it is interesting that so far we don't say twenty-oh-five so much in English (as in nineteen-oh-five) but two thousand and five. We like saying "thousand," as in "Two thousand and one: A Space Odyssey". Maybe when we get into the next decade we still start saying "twenty-oh-fourteen" and so forth. It's weird that we use two different systems to refer to dates before and after 2000; we don't say "one thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine" to refer to "1999".

  Interesting. I read a lot of English and write my own kind of it, but have very little opportunity to hear it...