This is one of those times where I wish that British English and American English matched. We were watching a UK TV show the other night on DVD, called My Family. One of the actors in it is Kris Marshall who is quite funny--and if you haven't seen the movie Love Actually, you really must see it (he's in it) (Love Actually and Princess Bride are my 2 all-time favorite movies).
In England, they use the word naught or nought for zero in some situations (and sometimes nil is used for zero as well). But in one of the My Family episodes, the character Nick (played by Marshall) says something along the lines of, "after all, we are living in the Naughties". And oh, how I wished that would work here in this country. I mean, come on, it's just so much better than saying the "Two Thousands" or the "Double 0s" and other stupid, tongue twisting terms for the current decade.
So from now on, please refer to our decade as The Naughties.
Thank you.
Nought? Yes, the Noughties... That is another media-friendly term coined on the eve of the Millennium. I wonder what they'll think of when 2010 arrives... As for 'My Family', it's been running for far too long over here and I can't say I am a fan. Where Kris to be given his own show, that would be different. He pops up in other things, such as a series of adverts for BT [British Telecom] broadband where he plays a somewhat goofy boyfriend to a woman with kids from a previous marriage.
Posted by: Ariel | April 19, 2007 at 04:10 AM
Ariel, I was a little surprised when I went to the BBC website to find My Family to see that it is still running! Actually, we even started getting a little bored during some of the second season. But I think it's because of the nostalgia especially that we do enjoy it (and Kris Marshall).
Posted by: sbukophile | April 19, 2007 at 07:02 AM