Memo to all Gregorian calendar users

Head office has asked me to pass on the following memo to you all. It's just a minor point of administration, and there are no sanctions for those who don't go along with this, but H.O feel it will lead to better functionality all round if you do. Thanks.

As of January 1st, two weeks from now, we will be entering a new year and a new decade. H.O ask that we all refer to this year as 20-10 (twenty ten) rather than 2010 (two thousand and ten).

This for two simple reasons. First is because of the difference in the number of syllables - 3 to 5. The second reason is because if we don't do it now we never will; we'll go all the way through this century, right up until two thousand and ninety nine, sounding (and breathing) like idiots every time we refer to the year.

The only reason 'two thousand and...' was adopted was to avoid confusion between the years 2009 and 29 for instance. We never spoke of 'the year one thousand nine hundred and ninety seven' and we now have an opportunity to move back to normal speech. The need to speak this way has passed, it no longer serves a function except to make you sound like you're referring to some distant Kubrickian future-scape.

Many thanks,
your servant, A. Amoss.

PS. This new decade is NOT 'the Teenies' regardless of what the red-tops say.