The Decade With No Name
 

So here we are mid-way through the penultimate year of this decade ... and as I predicted nine years ago, it has become the Decade With No Name.


Nothing has stuck. Not "The Aughts" or "The Ohs." I suppose the closest thing is the tongue-twisting ease of saying "The Two Thousands."


Not only is there no handy moniker for this numerically challenged decade, there's been no particular style or focus that I can see.


I guess it's best for there to be some distance to discern that sort of thing, but I'm getting a big picture of NOTHING - - whereas pretty much every decade until the 1990's had at least the reputation of a distinct style that immediately comes to mind when we say The 50's or The 60's. Works for the 70's and 80's, too. The 30's and 40's were less distinct and somewhat interchangeable, but the 20's were very distinct indeed.


So what happened? Turns out the characterlessness of the 90's was not the unique character of that decade. It has persisted now for 20 years to the end of the, uh, um, the Two Thousands.


Is this the end of style as we know it? Have we finally arrived at a homogenous future of blanditude?

2010 certainly won't be as futuristic as I'd hoped. But far more disturbing is the lack of identity. It's not even the dystopia of BladeRunner. It's just bleh.


BlehRunner. Our Future is Now.

I imagine that a couple decades from now they/we'll be calling it "the turn of the century" just as those of us born before the millennium refer to the 1900's as turn of the century.

Or, if we wanna be unique and get it to take quicker, we could call it "the turn of the millennium", but that's even more of a mouthful, isn't it?

That's our Steve, the eternal optimist. :D

For once, I completely and totally agree with Steve.

In Australia, it is accepted use throughout the country to refer to this decade as the "Naughties" Ye may titter, titter ye may, but everyone here is using this nomenclature (much to my secret delight)

Wouldn't The Naughties have been better for the 90's?

The Roaring Twenties! The Naughty Nineties!!!


Is it a lame rhyme on The Aughties?


You couldn't say that, I suppose, down under ... because in Australian that's how "The Eighties" would sound.


Still ... I'm a little jealous. At least there's a name.






But the toilets still swirl in the wrong direction.

Well, it "ought" to have a name.

So does "aught".