Random musings

One of the advantages of having to walk a dog - at least, it is in fine weather - is that it gives one time to think. It's difficult to get away with mulling something over sitting in a chair - other people, especially They Who Must Be Obeyed, have, I find, a tendency to assume that one is just doing nothing and soon interrupt the musings with a series of "can you just"s. So, walking the dog gets me out of the way of SWMBO for an hour or so at a time. Yes, I do have to greet other people, but it is not difficult to be alone if that is what I want without snubbing anybody I know.

Of course, it's not everyday I have a particularly knotty problem I want to think over and on many a day I find myself just taking in my surroundings - how the leaves are starting to show on the trees, what flowers are coming out, the different species of birds. Other times I find my mind just switches off and I go into that half-awake, half-asleep state that is one of the most delicious parts of going to bed. It is then that those random thoughts strike. Take, for example, this morning's.

Out of nowhere, I started wondering just how one should pronounce the year number 2010. Is it twenty-ten or two thousand and ten? A hundred years ago it was nineteen-ten, not one thousand nine hundred and ten, nor nineteen hundred and ten. Last year, though, was two thousand and nine, not twenty-oh-nine.

The French don't have this problem (I can't speak for any other country). As far as they are concerned the year is two thousand ten (no "and"). Thirteen years ago we were in nineteen-ninety-seven, but to the French it was mille, neuf cent, quatre vingt dix-sept, which translates word for word as "thousand, nine hundred, four twenties [four score?], ten-seven". They have no word for eighty or ninety, nor for 17, 18 or 19. It's all very strange, but perhaps nowhere near as strange as my rambling thoughts.