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Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

writing year in words in English

English answer:

two thousand and N (EN-UK) two thousand N (EN-US)

Added to glossary by gspcpt
Jan 12, 2017 11:00
7 yrs ago
57 viewers *
English term

writing year in words in English

English Other General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters Dates
The other day on TV I heard a newscaster say "twenty-seventeen" for the year. I would like to know if it is proper --especially in legal documents-- when writing out the date in words to put, for example, "on the twelfth of January of twenty seventeen" or if it should be "two thousand seventeen". We used to write "nineteen ninety-five", but at the turn of the century we started putting "two thousand whatever". Is there any rule on this? Is there a difference between American English and British? Thanks!
Responses
4 +6 two thousand and N (EN-UK) two thousand N (EN-US)
References
writing (or saying) the year in UK EN
Change log

Jan 12, 2017 11:42: Charles Davis changed "Language pair" from "Spanish to English" to "English"

Votes to reclassify question as PRO/non-PRO:

Non-PRO (2): Tony M, Yvonne Gallagher

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Discussion

Björn Vrooman Jan 14, 2017:
Thanks, Charles. I've already looked it up and listened to it...not my music.

"I suppose it's associated in my mind with discovering the country for the first time."
I sincerely hope you've since had other opportunities to correct that image :)
Charles Davis Jan 14, 2017:
The singer was Daniela, by the way. Just in case you're curious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAFBN9UYApI
Charles Davis Jan 14, 2017:
@Björn I did say it was a terrible song, and believe me I am not a Schlager fan. But it was a big hit in Germany when I was on a school exchange, living with a German family. I've just looked it up; it was in 1971. I couldn't help hearing it all the time, and I'm afraid it stuck, though I haven't thought about it since. I suppose it's associated in my mind with discovering the country for the first time.
Björn Vrooman Jan 14, 2017:
@Charles "You've reminded me of a terrible pop song"

I'm a child of the 90s. The song you're referring to was recorded pre-1980s. Except for the Beatles, Bob Dylan and classical music, I don't know many singers/composers from before that era. Additionally, I don't listen to a lot of German songs and this is "Schlager," which I've always tried to avoid :)

OT:
Die Prinzen and Heinz Rudolf Kunze is about everyone I could point you to. The latter has a very interesting background (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Rudolf_Kunze ). I think he alludes to it in one of his songs.

Alhough...there's one song I know from the 1970s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcdkwdfz0GA

It is even mentioned on the singer's Wiki page ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettina_Wegner ) because of its political implications.

...
What I find curious is that in the old ProZ question, the ones defending the use of "hundreds" were native speakers of British English. The EU, as shown below, seems to use "hundreds" and Americans may have dropped "of our Lord," but you still see "in the year" preceding (two) thousand.

And Robert's link shows the version in "tenths" based on a US newspaper style guide. I am confused.
Tony M Jan 13, 2017:
Y2k Don't let's forget, there was so much hoo-hah about 'the year Two Thousand' and all that, it was bound to take a while to get out of people's minds.

It was around two thousand and nine that the BBC issued and official policy statement that from now one it would be 'twenty-ten' etc.
Charles Davis Jan 13, 2017:
@Sheila I think that's right. I confess I'm still in the habit of saying "two thousand and seventeen", but that's probably because after so long in Spain I'm mentally translating "dos mil diecisiete", and if I lived in the UK I'd have got into the twenty-seventeen habit by now.

No, "twenty one" and "twenty two" were never going to be viable, but in theory, after 2000, people could have switched to "twenty-oh-one", just as we call 1901 "nineteen-oh-one" (I wonder if people did at the time? Of course "nineteen one" would have worked, so it's not the same). But I think we'd all got so used to saying "two thousand and one" before the event, thanks to Kubrick, that it was bound to happen. So it's all his fault :)
Sheila Wilson Jan 13, 2017:
I asked an EFL guru back around 2000 I was told that things were expected to get back to normal in the early teens, and I think that's what has happened. Saying 'twenty two' etc would have been downright confusing. Some people who'd got used to using thousands carried on for 2010, 2011 etc, but I think we've all made the changeover now. Americans seem to like to talk in hundreds, up to vast amounts of them. I've frequently heard numbers such as 'thirty-three hundred' on the TV. I just can't visualise it so it calls for a wee spot of mental arithmetic.
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2017:
I suppose the thing is that it was always inevitable that 2000 would be called two thousand, not twenty hundred. So you naturally continue with two thousand and one (especially considering the Space Odyssey), and so it continued for some years, by inertia.

And we call the year 1000 "one thousand", not "ten hundred", don't we?
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2017:
True... But if we're happy saying "ten" in 1066, it's curious that most of us have taken quite a long time to get used to saying "twenty" in our century; even after 16+ years it's by no means universal. I don't recall anyone saying "twenty oh-one" or "twenty oh-two" at the time; it just didn't right somehow. I bet our descendants will say "twenty" when referring to our century just as we say "ten" when referring to William the Conqueror's. And people will slip neatly into "twenty-one oh-one" in 2101, having said "twenty ninety-nine" in 2099. Will they say "twenty-one hundred" in 2100, I wonder?
Carol Gullidge Jan 12, 2017:
And then there's the 1812 Overture Pronounced eighteen twelve, as we all know
Carol Gullidge Jan 12, 2017:
Not that strange, as in fourteen ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue

Not to mention the recapture by the Catholic kings of Granada - but that's another story
B D Finch Jan 12, 2017:
Strange ... that 1066 is ten sixty-six, not one thousand and sixty-six.
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2017:
In the same vein, there was another one I can still hear in my head, which went "In the year twenty-five twenty-five...". Not two thousand five hundred and twenty-five, which wouldn't have scanned.
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2017:
@Björn You've reminded me of a terrible pop song, which has tenaciously stuck to the back of my brain for years, as these things do: do you remember "Im Jahre Zweitausendzwei / ja da ist alles vorbei"? Perhaps you're too young. Back in the twentieth century it was somehow exciting to imagine the new millennium, as if everything would be different.
Björn Vrooman Jan 12, 2017:
"Since most of us live under 100 years, we'll similarly understand what century is meant. Someone wearing a Class of '21 sweatshirt will be understood to be either 2021 or 1921, with no chance of confusion for the other. The '68 Ford Mustang does not refer to a horse ridden by a Mr. Ford in 1468."
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/263778/why-do-we-...

In German, you don't use "thousand," but say "nineteen hundred," etc. as Charles most recent discussion post shows. Germans typically use "thousand" for 1000-1099 and again starting at 2000.

By the way, we've already had this discussion in English-English(!):
http://www.proz.com/kudoz/english/law:_contracts/726295-eigh...

The conclusion is different, though.

EU publications:
"However, in some legal documents, dates and reference to dates are written out in full: [...]
The thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and eighty-one."
http://publications.europa.eu/code/en/en-4100500en.htm

See 12.20 here for US usage:
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-STYLEMANUAL-2008/html/GPO-...

BTW, RE: Robert's link
See rule 1 there :)
Robert Carter Jan 12, 2017:
@Charles Thanks. I do stress this is only for legal documents (I'm thinking of notarial ones in particular, where they write out whole paragraphs of numbers, mostly to do with dates, folios, entries, etc.). I think changing them to numbers is perfectly fine for other less formal documents.
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2017:
@Robert That's a perfectly defensible approach, I think. Mind you, for numbers generally people in the US often say "nineteen hundred" rather than "one thousand nine hundred", or even (for example) "twenty-six hundred" instead of "two thousand six hundred"; I heard this recently in coverage of the World Chess Championship when they were discussing players' ELO ratings. So you could defend the use of "nineteen hundred" in a date.
Robert Carter Jan 12, 2017:
@Helena My approach with legal documents is to use like for like, so I would use "one thousand nine hundred sixty" (US) or "one thousand nine hundred and sixty" (UK), and I also never use commas between words that are part of the same number (so not "one thousand, nine hundred and sixty").
See rule 8b here:
http://www.grammarbook.com/numbers/numbers.asp
Helena Chavarria Jan 12, 2017:
@Phil and Charles Thank you for your comments.
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2017:
Having said that, I'm basically with Phil; when I have the year in words in a Spanish document I usually put it in figures in the English translation. I have occasionally made an exception for deliberately archaic arbitration documents I get from one of my clients.
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2017:
@Helena Phil's right about the UK, where the year is not very often written in words nowadays (though AllegroTrans disagrees with this, so perhaps it's not so rare), but it's done a bit more often in legal texts in the US. It used to be quite common practice.

As for the form of words, "one thousand nine hundred (and) sixty..." was standard up to the first half of the twentieth century, but it's quite rarely found in the latter half of the century. In the US, "nineteen hundred sixty" or "nineteen hundred and sixty" are more often found than just "nineteen sixty" in legal texts (including legislation). By the way, although in everyday life Americans nearly always say and write "nineteen hundred sixty" (or "two thousand sixteen"), and many think that it's wrong to include "and", American lawyers and legislators often write "nineteen hundred and sixty" or "two thousand and sixteen", in the British manner.
philgoddard Jan 12, 2017:
Helena: no I know lawyers like to spell out amounts of money, but surely you wouldn't write the year in words.
Helena Chavarria Jan 12, 2017:
While we're on the subject could someone please tell me if we would write '1963' as 'one thousand, nine hundred (and) sixty-three' in a legal text?

I wouldn't, although I appreciate that I could be wrong as the majority of legal texts I see are in Spanish.
Charles Davis Jan 12, 2017:
Language pair This is really a monolingual English question, so I've changed the language pair.
Iseult Harrington Jan 12, 2017:
Difference between written and spoken use of years Whenever stating a year in a formal document, I would generally write it in its numeric form (i.e. 2017). However, in UK English, the written form would be two thousand and seventeen, as opposed to the US version of two thousand seventeen. There does seem to be a recent change in both versions, however, where people say twenty seventeen, but I would never use this in a formal context.

Responses

+6
1 hr
Selected

two thousand and N (EN-UK) two thousand N (EN-US)

www.ocr.org.uk/.../64450-examiner-s-report-level-3-legal-word-processing-summer....in words should be two thousand and eleven, not twenty eleven, particularly in a legal document.

https://www.lawscot.org.uk/media/326164/Ayr.pdfDecember Two Thousand and Five as amended by clause 3 of this offer: 1. ... and registered in the Books of Council and Session on Twenty Second December Two ...

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr (2017-01-12 12:39:36 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

So, the current year is formally written as "two thousand and seventeen" in the UK or Australia (https://www.grammarly.com/answers/questions/79325-how-to-spe... and "two thousand seventeen" in the US. "Twenty seventeen" is OK for informal use.
Peer comment(s):
agree BdiL : Yes, ma'am. I am now sure there's a difference across the Atlantic, as I learnt it "over there", but always felt that "and" was missing. Funny me, aren't I?
30 mins
Thanks, I always find it jars to hear dates in EN-US; it's a question of what's more familiar.
agree Tina Vonhof (X)
3 hrs
Thanks Tina
agree Charles Davis : Americans mostly omit "and", and many think it's wrong (having been taught this at school), but US legislators often include it: e.g. "two thousand and fifteen". An example: http://www.maine.gov/ethics/pdf/IB2015ch1_LD806.pdf
4 hrs
Thanks Charles. What about "Wednesday" instead of "on Wednesday"?
neutral philgoddard : I don't think you'd do this with years.
4 hrs
I and my reference sources (and many others) beg to differ.
agree Tony M : Yes, see this all the time! 'Twenty seventeen' etc. is the now approved version for spoken use, but not written thus in formal documents.
4 hrs
Thanks Tony
agree Yasutomo Kanazawa
19 hrs
Thanks Yasutomo
agree Phong Le
2 days 1 hr
Thanks Phong Le
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "When I asked the question, I didn't realize that it would open such a discussion. Thanks to everyone."

Reference comments

48 mins
Reference:

writing (or saying) the year in UK EN

'Should you have occasion to say 2016 out loud, for example in a podcast, pronounce it “twenty sixteen”, not “two thousand and sixteen”'

This is according to the Guardian & Observer style guide, which I find pretty reliable...
Reference:

http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-d

Peer comments on this reference comment:
neutral danya : I would say it is very register-dependent, isn't it
4 mins
of course, in keeping with a TV newscaster! (if I've understood your comment correctly!) Note that the Asker is asking for what is "proper" in legal documents, so the register needs to be high
agree writeaway : same in USAese afaik. Of course many people may find it posher if it's referred to as UKese :-)
49 mins
thanksW/A! Fwiw, I could check with my daughter, who is a lawyer, when she has a spare moment, but the probably won't be until after the office has closed...
neutral B D Finch : That's for speech, not writing and, time being limited in podcasts, the shorter version would be preferred there, but not in court.
53 mins
I had the distinct impression that the Asker was enquiring about legal documents - still not famous for their brevity, although I believe things are improving!
agree Helena Chavarria : The newscasters on BBC World always say twenty seventeen. http://www.proz.com/forum/off_topic/266797-how_is_the_year_2...
2 hrs
thanks Helena :) I think it changed at around twenty ten whereas before that it was always two thousand and nine afair
agree Tony M : Yes, also BBC official style.
4 hrs
thanks Charles :)
agree Charles Davis : "Twenty" for "two thousand" is very rarely written in legal docs (not that "two thousand" is written out very often either). It's convenient and widespread in speech, of course, but many people have a vague sense that it's less formal.
5 hrs
thanks Charles!
agree acetran
1 day 23 mins
thanks acetran!
agree Yvonne Gallagher : LOL, first time I heard that! In my mid-twenties I was known as "Star Lady" (long story!) for a while so I guess that would have come close!
3 days 2 hrs
thanks Gallagy (although my predictatext insists you should be called "Galaxy"!) :)
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