Twenty Twelve

2012. And I mean TWENTY twelve. Did you notice the turning point? It's almost like an unwritten, unspoken instruction has been sent around the world.

"This is the year we will all stop saying 'two thousand and something' and start saying 'twenty something'."

I can understand it with, say, the BBC. Apart from the occasional slip by the odd presenter, they've been wall-to-wall twenty twelve since January 1st. But that *could* be due to an internal, corporate decision. What's more surprising is the way the change has spread into the zeitgeist almost overnight. Are all your friends and acquaintances doing it? Mine are.

And once you've made the change, it's somehow more natural to refer to last year as twenty eleven too. And the year before that. Twenty ten. So what took us so long?