h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have been after hootoo for four years to come up with a better name for the decade, and all I got was a line from gnomon
"The UK doesn't have a problem with it . It is only the United states that still is struggling with it.
Nobody liked my yuppie shorthand calling it D2k
Several websites and newsreports in the states called it
the 2000's some called it the aughts. That is what I am calling them.
A new short story in analog magazine referred to "the noughts and the teens.
For the record I still objecty to calling these years Noughties.

maybe we should call it the dubya decade
http://www.dubyaspeak.com/

If we had a conversation thread search engine It wouldn't be so hard to find backlog like http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F19585?thread=6403203 years before that someone said "I can't think of anything more boring than consensus. Let everyone call it something different if they want."

That conversation happened before I arrived in these parts, but thanks for drawing my attention to it. So the consensus is that there wasn't really a consensus?

Yes it seems that it has been generally agreed by the media outlets that the last ten years will be called 'The Noughties'. And once something gets repeated enough it tends to stick.

Not sure I'm that fond of it either.

Gosh, I've got to call it the aughts, now.
"Y'know, when I was your age we were in the middle of the great blizzard of aught-nine! You know what I did? Drove my car to work just the same! Uphill both ways!"

The noughties is just too... blunt. I get the feeling that someone is expecting me to giggle every time I say it, and it paves the way for the tenties.
I am not living in the tenties.

I've heard the Noughty Aughts proposed by David Brin.
The next decade had better be the teens.

I'll agree to the teens.
As to 2000-2009 perhaps we should just agree that there is no consensus.

Tabloid heading:
MEMORABLE EVENTS FROM THE 00'S
People magazine:
The most memorable people of 2000-2009

1.The 100th year of the 20th Century and last year of the 2nd Millennium was definitely and indisputably 2000.

2.The 1st year of the first decade of the 21st Century and of the 3rd Millennium was definitely and indisputably 2001 - obviously. The clue is in the number '1'.

3.The 10th and last year of the first decade of the 21st century will be 2010 - obviously. The clue is in the number '10'.

4.The last day of the first decade of the 21st century and 3rd millennium will definitely and indisputably be December 31st 2010.

There is an ongoing concerted and fraudulent effort by the BBC in cahoots with other media companies to deny these facts for cynical commercial branding and packaging purposes. This is an abuse of their position of information stream control domination.

Clear thinkers will ignore them and respect and express true and honest chronological facts and conventions.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,one more to go

One way of looking at it, however there is a problem--
the year 2020 is in the twenties so the last year of the second decade has to be 2019 subtracting 10 from that makes 2009 the last year of this decade.

The millenium, century and decade do not need to start on the same year. some say y2k existed outside of both centuries, I rather believe however it started this decade.

I'm sure you're right, AccurateChronometer, but it might have been better if you had added that the reason a decade begins with a one is that there was no year zero separating BC from AD - the first year AD was 1AD, and not 0AD.

I must add that I'm not so sure about, "There is an ongoing concerted and fraudulent effort by the BBC in cahoots with other media companies to deny these facts for cynical commercial branding and packaging purposes".

Sounds a bit cynical to me.

It might not be right, but subconsciously (to me anyway), starting at 0 looks right and ending at 9 looks right too.
But then, maybe I've spent a little too long programming. 0123456789 -break carry the 1- ...

as to the matter of no zero
I can picture a decade:
I,II,III,IV,V,VI,VII,VIII,IX,X
but I can also picture one
XX,XXI,XXII,XXIII,XXIV,XXV,XXVI,XXVII,XXVIII,XXIX
I can't really imagine the year 30 being part of the twenties.
so that reason just doesn't hold water for me.

As to the name of the decade, one of the major newspapers of Lansing MI
the city Pulse
http://npaper-wehaa.com/citypulse/2009/12/30/#?dpg=1
has a cover story on the decade entitled "the Aughts"

however their major political writer said the following
Don't use "the 2000s" or "the aughts" or "the zeros." The last 10 years has been the "the naughts." Ten years symbolizing the old English definition of the word: Nothing.

another headline by a different writer
The best Michigan-related books of the '00s

And yet another
Lansing's biggest arts stories of the Aughts
so it appears even on their staff they could not reach consensus on what to call it.
But the cover is emblazoned with the words "the Aughts"