Question
Do native English speakers minimize the number of syllables when they pronounce years?
Furthermore, is there linguistics/psychology literature on this phenomenon?
Observations
Here is a table showing how I pronounce some years (I don't know how to render into the IPA, but I hope this is clear enough).
| Year | Pronounced (R) | Pedantic (E) | (E - R) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1701 | seventeen-o-one (5) | one thousand seven hundred one (8) | 3 |
| 1777 | seventeen-seventy-seven (8) | one thousand seven hundred seventy seven (12) | 4 |
| 1901 | nineteen-o-one (4) | one thousand nine hundred one (7) | 3 |
| 1999 | nineteen-ninety-nine (5) | one thousand nine hundred ninety nine (9) | 4 |
| 2000 | two-thousand (3) | two thousand (3) | 0 |
| 2001 | two-thousand-one (4) | two thousand one (4) | 0 |
| 2007 | two-thousand-seven (5) | two thousand seven (5) | 0 |
| 2009 | two-thousand-nine (4) | two thousand nine (4) | 0 |
| 2010 | twenty-ten (3) | two thousand ten (4) | 1 |
| 2011 | twenty-eleven (5) | two thousand eleven (6) | 1 |
| 2020 | twenty-twenty (4) | two thousand twenty (5) | 1 |
Year is a numeral representation of a year, Pronounced is how I pronounce the year, Pedantic shows how I would pronounce the number formally, (numbers in parentheses) show my count for the number of syllables in each word. (E - R) shows the difference between the number of syllables in the pedantic and pronounced cases, representing how many syllables I avoid pronouncing by taking a shortcut. Notice that (E - R) is always greater than or equal to zero.
In each row, the way I pronounce a year appears to be near the lowest possible number of syllables that still communicates the number. An exception is 1777. I could save one syllable by saying "one seven seven seven"—seven syllables instead of eight.
I do not pronounce 2009 as "twenty-o-nine," but that pronunciation does not seem bad since it has the same number of syllables as "two-thousand-nine."
Some Comments and Prior Reading
I noticed this at the transitions between the 2000, 2010, and 2020 decades; and currently the "minimizing syllables" hypothesis is my best guess for why I often hear years pronounced differently.
An article that discussed how years in the first decades (00s) remarked on differences between American English and British English pronunciation, but the majority of its focus was whether the term 'aughts' was used historically[1]
... Americans living at the turn of the century referred to individual years as “aughts,” meaning zero, as in “nineteen aught one,” “nineteen aught two,” etc.
"Nineteen aught one" and "Nineteen o one" have the same number of syllables by my count.
A Macmillan Dictionary Blog post speculated on how we might pronounce years that haven't occurred yet (e.g. 2100, 2101), and claimed (without citing) a BBC newsreaders poll that people usually pronounced 2009 as "twenty oh nine," then concluded:[2]
As for why this way of saying years arose in the first place, I suspect it is simply because it is easier and quicker – try saying 1777 both ways to see what I mean.
There are a few previous English Language & Usage StackExchange posts that deal with similar topics:
- Saying dates in English (closed)
- Quiz Show Jeopardy: Are the 1910s called 'nineteen-tens' or 'nineteen-teens
... but neither fit the 'minimize syllables' portion.
The accepted answer to What are the rules for pronunciation of years in English? deals with this, but doesn't cite sources.
Footnotes
- [1]: Beam, Christopher. "The Uh-Ohs; What should we call the last decade?". Slate, 18 Dec. 2009. Accessed 17 April 2021.
- [2]: Potter, Liz. "Saying dates". Macmillan Dictionary Blog, 2010. Accessed 17 April 2021.
