This is the year to say Twenty Eleven for 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) December 17, 2010 -- A columnist is pushing for adoption of Twenty Eleven for 2011 instead of Two Thousand Eleven.
“It’s just klunky,” Gus Pearcy of Danville, Ind. said. “Our standard for saying the years has been fairly constant over the last century. Why did we change for the new century?.”
Pearcy contends that the standard for eons has been saying the first half of the year as seventeen, eighteen and nineteen and then tacking on the specific year. For instance, we say Nineteen Fifty Four, not One Thousand, Nine Hundred and Fifty Four.

His research has pointed him to some potential causes.
“First, we all remember the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was released in 1968,” Pearcy said. “The future was far away and Two Thousand and One sounded so futuristic that it stuck in our lexicon. But it is becoming cumbersome to always announce the century. We need to adopt our established shorthand and say Twenty Eleven.”
He adds that many language aficionados are predicting this to be the year for change, but for the wrong reason.

“David Crystal, author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, says the stubbornness to the change was based on rhythm and not logic,” Pearcy said. “This year it will actually cost you an extra syllable to say Two Thousand Eleven rather than the succinct Twenty Eleven. Apparently, we are lazy and that may work in my favor.”
To push the switchover, Pearcy has started a campaign media blitz using social media to persuade the public.
“Look at it this way, sooner or later we will say it right,” Pearcy boldly added. “By 2020, everyone will be saying Twenty Twenty because it has a history in eyesight measurement and television newsmagazines. No one will be caught saying Two Thousand Twenty.”
The “Say Twenty Eleven” campaign has a Facebook site at Facebook.com/SayTwentyEleven, as well as a blog at SayTwentyEleven.wordpress.com.

2011     pronounce the year     say the year     say twenty eleven     Twenty Eleven     Twenty Ten     two thousand eleven